


Coming Home From Far Away

by hobbitdragon



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Background Curtis Hoyle/Karen Page, Bottom Frank Castle, Communication, Domestic, Feminization, Gender Play, Grief/Mourning, In which both Frank and Foggy are Uhaul bisexuals, Kissing, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Not Canon Compliant, Oral Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Self-Esteem Issues, Sexual Dysfunction, Soft Dicks, Strap-Ons, Suicidal Thoughts, Top foggy, Trans Foggy Nelson, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 05:59:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18565360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon/pseuds/hobbitdragon
Summary: So, what if instead of Punisher S2/Daredevil S3, Matt stayed out of Foggy's life and Frank actually got therapy and was allowed to recover. Also what if Foggy was trans and excellent, and Frank and Foggy dated and had hot sex





	1. Meeting Again

**Author's Note:**

> AU Notes: I haven't seen any of Jessica Jones, The Defenders, or Iron Fist. I attempted a few episodes of Daredevil S3 and The Punisher S2, but I didn't enjoy either of them so I gave up. This fic is about Frank post S1 of The Punisher, and Foggy Nelson post S2 of Daredevil. It's canon-compliant up to those points in canon and diverges dramatically from canon after that. 
> 
> Language disclaimer: Foggy is a trans guy in this fic. The language used for his body is chest, dick, and hole. 
> 
> Content disclaimer: If you know anything about the Punisher, you know the kind of graphic violence Frank has in his past. This fic mentions this past violence and shows the impacts of it on Frank but contains no onscreen violence whatsoever. Also, while Foggy is trans in this fic and it gets discussed, this isn't an "issue fic." This fic is not about his transness, it's just there. And finally, for those concerned about the "Gender Play" tag in combination with a trans character, the only person who's the recipient of feminization and feminine language is Frank.

Foggy stood in the door of his apartment staring up at the Punisher, who hovered behind Karen clutching one of Karen’s casserole dishes and looking embarrassed. He wore heavy eyeliner and a black trenchcoat. Foggy opened his mouth to ask what seemed like the obvious question in that moment:  _ Is that Frank Castle? _ But then Foggy realized that no matter what the answer was, he didn’t want his neighbors overhearing it, and anyway it’d make him sound like an idiot to ask. So he simply stood aside and let Karen and Probably-Frank-Castle into his apartment. Frank walked with a pronounced limp.

“So when you said you were bringing a friend this week, I figured you were trying to set me up with some open-minded queer or something, not...” he trailed off. 

“Foggy, this is Pete,” Karen said, a little loud. She’d spent enough time at Foggy’s place during their weekly Friday night dinners to know exactly how thin the walls were here. Even now, Foggy could hear the stoners next door arguing mildly over which pizza delivery service to use. “Pete, this is my friend Foggy. He’s not usually rude to guests.”

Frank shrugged, eyes tracking around the room. Taking in how many windows there were, from the look of him, and the location of everything in the space. Foggy wondered what the hell Karen had been thinking bringing him here, and what this was really about. But since Frank had been officially declared dead six months ago, complete with gruesome photos of what had  _ looked _ like his corpse, the risk to Foggy for hosting the man for a single dinner was relatively low.

“Rocking the goth look with that guyliner and trenchcoat,” Foggy remarked, testing the waters. For a moment Frank looked at Foggy before his eyes circled the room again. He’d grown his hair out, too, and it hung loose and curly around his ears and nape. 

“Draws attention away from the rest of my face,” Frank murmured, setting the dish down on the kitchen counter. 

“Clever. And cute! Looks good on you.”

Frank shot Foggy a look, and Karen stifled a laugh behind one hand as she set down her purse. 

“Maybe I brought you an open-minded queer after all,” Karen teased. Foggy expected some negative response from Frank about this, but he merely sighed. 

He was quiet through most of the dinner as well. Foggy and Karen discussed their weeks--her the news from her job at the Bulletin, him the news from his job with the firm. Frank watched each of them as they ate, or sometimes stared at the wall or his plate. Finally Foggy couldn’t take it anymore: it was just too weird to have the Punisher at his table listening to the updates about Foggy’s divorcing coworkers.

“So, uh, Pete,” he fumbled, “what is it you do?”

“I’m in school to become a plumber,” Frank replied, and Foggy just stared, spoon frozen halfway to his face. 

“What, really? I feel like I could make a joke here about laying pipe, but that would probably be in poor taste.”

Karen snorted, her teeth clicking as they closed a little too hard on her fork. 

“No, Pete here lives a tragic, lonely, celibate life,” she sniped at Frank, who simply took it and looked long-suffering. Was _making fun of the Punisher_  a routine occurrence for Karen? Foggy wondered then how much he really knew about _any_ of the people he loved, if one of them had turned out to be the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and the other secretly knew the Punisher well enough to mock him for not getting laid. 

“So, exactly like me then,” Foggy joked, covering his discomfort. “We have so much in common!” 

But at this Karen turned judgmental eyes on Foggy. “You told me ad nauseum about your two hot hookups last month, you don’t get to talk about celibacy.”

“Two one night stands in the last three months does not an active love life make,” Foggy replied tartly. “And anyway, at least  _ I’m _ trying. Did  _ you _ actually call that hot therapist at the VA or are you still agonizing over it?”

His tone was a little too sharp and Foggy knew it as soon as he said it. It earned Foggy a narrow-eyed stare from Frank. But Foggy didn’t like being told by a skinny cis person, even Karen, that he was getting laid a lot. She was sweet and supportive, but she still had no idea what it was like trying to date while trans. 

And in Foggy’s own defense, Karen had brought the  _ Punisher _ over to his house unannounced. 

Karen, meanwhile, seemed unfazed by the rude remark. “His name is Curtis, and yes I did. He’s a friend of Pete’s in fact. Pete’s introduced me to his other friends, all three of them,” she poked Frank’s shoulder several times, as though referring to another topic of teasing. Frank meekly took another mouthful of lasagna. “So I figured it was time I did the same. You may be the world’s most well-connected man, but Frank and I both need of a little help in the friendship department.”

“So you asked  _ him _ for hookups and not me? As the world’s most well-connected man, I think I’m hurt.”

“Well how many extremely hot eligible men do you know? Other than...you know who.” Foggy opened his mouth to start naming names of all the straight men he crushed on but couldn’t do anything about, but Karen headed him off, pointing her fork at him and smiling. “Plus, introducing me to his friends wasn’t about hooking me up. It was about letting each other into our lives.”

“Oh,” Foggy deflated, glancing between the two of them. “That’s--really sweet.” He glanced at Frank, who looked back at him sidelong. “Well--welcome to Karen’s life every Friday night, then, uh...Pete. We usually get drunk, watch movies of varying quality, and bitch about everything. But we could do something else if you want.”

Frank shook his head, looking around the room again. 

After they’d finished eating, Karen offered to wash the dishes. Then Frank fixed Foggy with a stare. 

“I came because I wanted to...thank you,” he murmured, quiet enough that the rush of the faucet in the kitchen and the neighbors’ music would drown out his words to anyone who wasn’t superpowered like Matt. Foggy stared at him, wondering what on earth the man would say next. “You did the best you could during my trial. I know that, and I’m grateful. I know I didn’t make it easy. I didn’t, uh….” he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “There was a prison guard, okay. He told me that someone already in jail had a lead on who killed my family. And I would have been put away no matter what you did, so I just....at the time, I didn’t care what happened to me. So I figured it was better to just get the trial over with as fast as I could. I know it probably put you in an awkward spot. Karen too.”

Foggy stared at him. It had been clear even at the time that something had changed for Frank to cause him to throw a tantrum like the one he had in court the last day of the trial. Now, Foggy wondered what had happened to Frank in the year since Foggy had seen him, if it had produced this quiet, thoughtful thanks and apology. 

“Did you get the information you needed?” Foggy asked, pitching his voice just as soft. 

Frank nodded, the motion a little hesitant. 

“Then maybe it worked out as well as it could, given the givens,” Foggy decided as he said it. He’d been so angry after that trial--at Frank for ruining the case Foggy and Karen had worked so hard on, at Matt for abandoning all three of them in court, at himself for thinking Matt would ever be any different. But by now a year later Matt was still full of excuses, Frank’s trial had in fact gotten Foggy a great job at a good firm, and here was Frank, alive and seeming...not peaceful, but clearly different in some way. “I’m just sorry it had to happen in the way it did,” Foggy concluded, looking Frank in the eye.

Frank nodded, raising his gaze to look back. 

He didn’t talk during the movie like Karen and Foggy did, but he laughed along with them. His serious face wrinkled around his smiles so that, for a few moments, Foggy thought he could begin to understand what had made Karen befriend the man to begin with. The Punisher didn’t smile like that.

**

Frank showed up again several weeks later bearing his own home-cooked food. Foggy wondered if the previous time had been a last-minute decision, or if he hadn’t been sure of his welcome and didn’t want to leave dishes behind if he had to leave quickly. Either way, it turned out that the Punisher was a competent cook.

By a month on, Frank had become an accepted feature of Friday night dinner and movie. He still didn’t talk much, but when he did he had a dry sense of humor, was warmly supportive of Karen’s developing relationship with Curtis, and was proud of Foggy for defending New York’s crowd of weird and occasionally superpowered individuals in court. 

“My client today caught fire in court.  _ Caught fire! _ I just spent two days trying to convince everyone he was as human as anyone else in the room and thus not at fault for what happened at his job, and then his ex-girlfriend walked in late to the proceedings and he ignited.  _ Mortifying _ , he wound up half-naked and still twinkling merrily, not to mention how bad his cheap suit smelled as it burned.”

Frank laughed around a mouthful of the baked fish he’d brought. “Poor bastard. I’ve felt like that thinking about shit that upsets me, but  _ literally _ doing it in front of everyone...”

“Relatable, I know, but as his lawyer...” Foggy shook his head. “To top it off, his ex then proceeded to hit on me after we adjourned to get the defendant some clothes.”

“Was she hot?” Karen asked, giving him a gimlet eye. 

“Immaterial, I will not be party to some messed-up love triangle with a man who can literally catch fire.”

“Sound decision,” Frank agreed. Frank’s eyes rested on Foggy’s face. When Frank’s smile faded as the conversation moved on, the stare remained, traveling slowly over Foggy’s features and hair. Karen started talking about something particularly egregious she was researching for her work, so Foggy tried to just ignore the way Frank was looking at him. Eventually Frank turned to Karen to remark on something she’d said, and left Foggy wondering what that had been about. 

Foggy knew he had nothing to fear from Frank. So far as Foggy had been able to ascertain from Karen and a slough of news articles, Frank had stuck to his own particular murdery moral code after the trial and only slaughtered a ton of guys directly involved in large-scale drug trafficking and other unsavory pastimes. Foggy certainly did not meet whatever qualifications Frank used to decide who he was going to kill. 

But still. Despite rocking the goth look now, and despite the fact that Frank had clearly lost some muscle mass since the trial, the knowledge of who and what he was still raised gooseflesh all over Foggy’s body sometimes. 

The conversation topic changed to office gossip at Karen’s job, and the woman who was currently pregnant without a partner, and how the office was throwing her their own baby shower. 

“Do you want kids?” Frank interrupted Karen to ask, but stared into space as he did it. Karen paused for a second, pressing her lips together and looking seriously at him. 

“Someday, maybe,” she replied, in a quiet tone. She didn’t say anything else, clearly waiting for him to explain why he’d asked. 

“And you, Foggy?” Frank asked, still staring at the wall. 

“Hell no. I feel like I need a competent adult to take care of me way more often than I feel qualified to  _ be _ the competent adult.”

“Except in court,” Frank insisted, his gaze suddenly focusing as he turned to Foggy. “You’re good in court.” 

“Well yeah, but the rest of my life is kind of a disaster. I’ve been late filing my taxes the last five years running, and I haven’t cleaned my shower in months.”

“Gross,” Karen wrinkled her nose. 

But Frank just nodded and said nothing more for several long seconds. 

“Why do you ask?” Foggy ventured, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Just wanted to know if...if I’d be around anyone else’s kids. I got friends with kids. I’m basically their uncle now and they’d be jealous.”

Given what Foggy had read in the news, this probably referred to the Liebermans. Foggy hadn’t been aware Frank had kept contact with them. Apparently he had. They must be the other two friends Frank had introduced Karen to alongside Curtis.

“Well you need not fear that these loins shall produce any fruit,” Foggy joked, to lighten the mood again. “My brother and sister have already taken over the task of continuing the Nelson line and I’m content to let them keep the title of Reproductively Viable Nelsons all to themselves.” Foggy almost let himself say that being an uncle was much better than being a parent, caught himself, and silently thanked his lucky stars. 

Karen laid her hand on Frank’s shoulder and went right on talking about her coworker.

Frank was subdued the rest of the evening.

**

By three months into dinners with Karen and Frank, Foggy had gotten well and truly used to Frank. Frank was a quiet but occasionally funny guy. Opinionated about seemingly random things, then laid-back about others, in ways Foggy usually couldn’t predict. Some nights, he opened up readily and shared about life before the death of his family, telling stories about his wife, children, and friends. They usually always kept music on in the background to mask their words and just let Frank talk once he got started, egging him on as much as needed. There was something magnetic about seeing Frank come out of his shell, the smile-lines he got around his eyes and the way he tossed his curls back out of his face.

But some dinners Frank spent staring at the wall, eating mechanically and contributing nothing to the conversation. On those days, he couldn’t even sit still for the movies, and so he wandered around Foggy’s apartment, cleaning and fixing things. Both Foggy and Karen had learned not to try to engage him when he was like that as all it earned them were angry stares. 

The next week after such an evening, Foggy asked Frank why he even came on days like that. 

“I like hearing your voices,” Frank murmured. “Reminds me I’m not just crazy and rotting away in a cell somewhere. Part of me thinks that’s more likely than any of this.” He gestured around Foggy’s apartment. 

Foggy looked away, forcing himself to take a deep breath. “Fair enough,” was all he could think to say. “In your shoes, I guess I’d want to hear some familiar voices too.” 


	2. Making Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for some referenced biphobia in this chapter. It's offscreen and brief.

Four months into Frank’s presence on Friday nights, Frank got drunk on vodka and sat giggling and crying at the end of Foggy’s couch. Foggy didn’t know what to do with a Punisher who was giggle-crying, so he elbowed Karen. Karen was a little too tipsy herself to know what Foggy’s still-mostly-sober and very meaningful facial expressions were implying. So Foggy decided that the solution would be to drink enough himself that he wouldn’t feel so awkward about asking Frank about his feelings. The movie they were watching--something from the seventies whose name Foggy had already forgotten--was pretty funny. So that explained the giggling. The crying was the disturbing thing. But maybe Frank was just a maudlin drunk and he’d never been drunk enough around Foggy for Foggy to know? Ugh, the whole thing gave Foggy anxiety. 

By the time the movie was over and Karen had called a Lyft for herself, Frank wasn’t crying anymore. He had his head back on the couch and was staring wide-eyed at the ceiling instead, which was almost as disturbing.

“You heading home soon?” Foggy asked, trying not to seem pressuring, but it came out a bit too loud because alcohol. 

“I want to stay here forever,” Frank admitted, and then squeezed his eyes shut with a wince. “Shit. I just said that out loud. I’m drunk.”

“Well  _ I’m _ flattered. That’s flattering,” Foggy remarked, because it was the most tactful thing he could think of right now. “Is it supposed to be flattering?”

“Your neighbors are just stoned all the time. They’re good kids, just dumb. At my place I can hear the guy next door screaming at his wife and toddlers. I called the cops twice and they didn’t do shit. They never do. Now I can’t stop thinking about all the guns I stashed around the city.”

“As your former lawyer, I advise you to please not shoot your neighbor,” Foggy stated. “Though I sympott--shympath--” the word didn’t want to come out right. “I feel you, dude. Your neighbor sounds like a shithead. If his wife needs a lawyer you can send her to me.”

“You and I should have sex,” Frank said then. Foggy’s eyes went wide enough that he worried they’d dry out, but he couldn’t make himself blink. After a second, though, Frank just looked disgusted with himself and turned away, nose wrinkled up and mouth all turned-down. “Ugh. This is why I don’t drink.”

“What did you mean by that?” Foggy asked, because if ever a statement needed clarification, it was that one. He could have sworn that the Punisher had just propositioned him, but men like Frank did not proposition people like Foggy, ever, and Frank hadn’t shown any interest in sex or romance even with Karen. Karen had to be some sort of gold-standard measurement for something because damn near everyone who met her fell at least a little in love with her. 

But Frank clammed up, lacing his hands together and squeezing till his knuckles went white. He said nothing.

“Okay dude, I’ll just obsess over it in silence, then,” Foggy said, with equally embarrassing honesty. “I was gonna offer to let you spend the night on my couch, but now it’s just gonna sound like I’m trying to touch your dick. So maybe you should go home instead?”

Frank just leaned into the back of the couch a little harder, turning doleful eyes at Foggy. 

“Or I can go fetch you some blankets, whatever,” Foggy added. It took him several moments to stand up properly, because the couch was kinda deep and the ground seemed to be moving a little bit. But he managed to toddle over to the linen closet, pulling out the nice feather pillow he kept for guests and the even nicer down comforter and bringing them over to Frank. He was about to lay them on Frank’s lap when he realized that Frank, like Foggy himself, was drunk. Drunk people sometimes vomited. And this was a very nice comforter. 

“Are you gonna barf? Don’t barf on my nice stuff, please,” Foggy directed. Frank just nodded acknowledgment, looking serious like he almost always did. 

By the next morning he hadn’t barfed on Foggy’s nice stuff. He instead lay sprawled on the couch with one black-socked foot sticking out the end of the blankets and his eyeliner smudged all over. He looked almost sweet when he was asleep, Foggy thought--and then Foggy stepped on a squeaky board and Frank jerked upright, a large knife appearing in his hand from nowhere. 

Well that was creepy.

Frank stared wildly around the apartment, Foggy stared at the knife with grave concern for where Frank had been hiding a blade of that size, and then Foggy just shook himself and kept walking to the kitchen for a glass of water and extra-strength acetaminophen. For the span of time it took to get down two glasses, fill them, shake an appropriate number of gel-caps into his hand, take two, and drink most of a glass of water, Foggy contemplated doing the polite thing and leaving everything from last night in the past. Then he realized he’d just obsess over it in silence exactly like he’d said he would. And Frank was a man who valued honesty anyway. 

“So last night you cried and then propositioned me for sex. I realize you’re probably kinda hungover, just like me, but that just means you already feel like shit. So how about you get all the bad feelings out at once by having this awkward conversation with me right now.”

The groan Frank let out as he collapsed back onto the couch cushions seemed to indicate disagreement. The knife thunked as it landed on the coffee table. But Foggy just brought another glass of water and pair of pills across the room and held it down toward the muddle of blankets that contained Frank. One of Frank’s bleary eyes opened and regarded him, and Foggy held open his other hand to reveal the bright blue and red capsules. 

“Take both and talk to me, buddy. C’mon.”

Complying, Frank chugged most of the glass and grabbed the pills, his fingertips warm and dry against Foggy’s palm. Then he sat holding the glass with his shirt rucked down over one shoulder and his hair hanging over his face. A reddish scar showed against his collarbone.

“Just forget what I said. It was stupid.”

“No, sex with me is a  _ fantastic _ idea,” Foggy disagreed, because he liked to think he was a competent lover and didn’t want to display his gnarly self-esteem issues right now. “I just didn’t expect you to be the one having it.”

But Frank didn’t laugh, or smile, or do anything to try to lighten the mood. He just stared into the cup, running one thumb up and down the side. No further words seemed to be forthcoming, and as usual when presented with an awkward silence, Foggy tried to fill it.

“So regardless of whether anyone fucks anyone else, congrats on coming out? Maybe?” No response from Frank. “Or maybe not. Maybe you were just drunk and I should do the gentlemanly thing and drop it. But full disclosure, obsessing will definitely happen either way. On my end at least. It’s not every day I have hot ex-vigilantes asking for my bod.”

Frank glanced at the walls, and Foggy remembered his neighbors in a mortified rush. 

“Lemme put some music on,” he said guiltily, and did so. Among the other facts Foggy had learned about Frank in the last four months, it turned out that Frank liked Shania Twain. Normally that would have been a topic for ruthless mockery, but Foggy had a healthy appreciation for the artist himself. He couldn’t be blamed for being a product of his time and Frank was only a few years older. So Foggy thumbed to her work in his phone and then hooked it into his speakers on low. ‘Man I Feel Like A Woman’ filtered softly out of Foggy’s speakers, and Frank stared hard at him.

“Look I don’t--” Frank began. “I don’t even want sex, really. My dick ain’t been properly hard for any reason except morning wood in a long time now. Last time I jerked off was a month back.” Foggy blinked, trying to contemplate not jerking off for a month. He gave up on it right away and deleted the horrible thought. “I just….Curtis and Karen are doing well together, and Curtis keeps trying to convince me I shouldn’t give up on love in my future. Joke’s on him, though, I already did that the day my wife and kids died. But every time I say that he just tells me I could at least get laid. Keeps trying to set me up with women.” Frank shook his head, staring into the blank TV screen. “But I don’t ever wanna touch another woman. There’s no woman for me but her.”

Frank didn’t have to specify for it to be clear that he meant his dead wife. Foggy squinted at the other man, feeling significantly less flattered and more concerned and headachey with every passing second. It wasn’t a secret that Frank hadn’t been doing anything like well this last year, or that it would be a very long time until he was better--if indeed that day ever came. But that didn’t make it any less upsetting to hear. 

“So you were just drunk and talky last night?” Foggy concluded, and tried not to feel hurt. It had been nice to imagine that a man like Frank might look at Foggy and feel desire, but if even  _ Matt _ hadn’t done so--

“No,” Frank denied. When Foggy stared at him, Frank curled his hands together, digging one thumbnail into one of his scars in a way that looked like it hurt. “I don’t...I don’t know how to explain it without sounding weird. I don’t wanna offend you.”

Perplexed by this statement and also maybe a little light-sensitive, Foggy closed his eyes. The ten-o-clock sun was coming right in through his east-facing windows. 

“So you don’t want sex, but wanna hook up with me?” Foggy stated, unable to make sense of this.”

“Well it’s different with men, isn’t it,” Frank murmured. Foggy’s eyebrows lifted still higher. 

“Is it?” Foggy had a lot of ideas of what such a statement might mean, but if there were ever a time not to jump to conclusions, it was now. 

“Well I mean...I wouldn’t have to...I could just...” Frank trailed off. Foggy fought valiantly with himself not to try to finish those incomplete sentences. But his brain couldn’t be kept from autocompleting. 

“You could just...” he prompted. 

Frank snorted, but a moment later he sighed, and the couch moved as he sat back against it. “Well I wouldn’t have to get hard, would I? I could just...get back on the horse. Get used to getting touched again, right. Get Curtis off my back but--not have to do anything.”

Foggy couldn’t help the face he made at this, blinking in disgust. This had gone from very flattering to outright insulting and he felt dizzy. He couldn’t tell if it was the disappointment or the hangover. 

“Do you honestly think I wanna fuck someone unresponsive and disinterested? Really? Is that the vibe I’m giving off, because if so--”

Shaking his head at Foggy in denial, Frank downed the last of his water before setting the glass down on the coffee table with exaggerated care. 

“You’re fine, c’mon. Shit, I said I was just stupid and drunk. Shoulda just forgot I said anything.”

“Zero percent chance of that now, buddy,” Foggy said, and wished it weren’t true. 

**

Foggy assumed that would be the painfully awkward end to that and they would never speak of it again. 

But instead Frank called him mid-week. Given that Foggy was in a trial at the time the call went straight to his voicemail. Which was probably what Frank had wanted. 

When Foggy listened to the message in his apartment later, home from work and slouching around in pajamas, the voicemail started with a crackle of static, like something had moved close to the cell’s microphone. 

“Wanted to apologize for the other night,” Frank began, his rough voice quiet and tired-sounding. Foggy wondered if Frank hadn’t been sleeping again this week. “Made it sound all stupid and gross. You’re not the kind of creep who’d do anything like how I made it sound.” Well that was a relief to hear at least. “I don’t know how to do this. I can’t tell you any of this shit to your face like I should. Curtis says that because I met my wife young and we went straight from dating to having kids I never really learned how to talk to people very well. He’s probably right. Bastard nearly always is. Fuck’im.” A silence in the message, then a gusty sigh as Frank breathed right over the microphone. Foggy knew how much Frank loved Curtis. 

“I meant what I said. I don’t want sex anymore. Maybe my dick’s broken. I can’t find a single fuck to give about it--” Foggy wondered if Frank realized the pun he’d made, and given the little “Heh” that followed after a pause in the message, it seemed he had. “Out of all the injuries I got, all the pain I live with, this ain’t the worst. If I don’t think about it, it doesn’t feel like anything’s missing. But shit, Curtis is right, man. I  _ do _ miss being touched. I miss all the shit that goes  _ with _ sex, the...the...” Another silence. “The stuff you’re supposed to do around fucking. The kissing and touching and whatever. But every time I want that, I remember my wife. And she’s dead, she’s--So every time I think of it, I think about how she’s dead and isn’t ever coming back to me and I didn’t stop it and...”

Another long pause followed this in the message, filled with Frank breathing hard into the microphone. Then, “Curtis says I won’t ever gonna stop living in the past if I don’t give myself something new to remember. And shit, he’s right, again,  _ fuck him _ I know he’s right. Shit. It’s why I asked Karen and Curtis to help me meet people. I was just figuring friends, because who the fuck am I to even think of moving on from her.” Foggy winced at the bald despair of the statement, but that wasn’t news either, not really. “But Curtis, he...now he’s happy and getting laid, shit. Him and Karen have ganged up on me. And you’re...”

Foggy waited anxiously to hear what he was, palms sweaty. Frank was...well, ‘a hot mess’ would be a charitable way of putting it, but there was solid emphasis on the ‘hot’ in that statement, and Foggy was tired of being single even if before this weekend he hadn’t ever thought about Frank in that way. 

“You’re a nice guy,” Frank finished anticlimactically, and Foggy huffed, rubbing his face. “Really. I mean shit. I got a grand total of five people in this world that I trust, Foggy. People who know what I am and want to be near me anyway. Sarah and David asked me to--well nevermind.” Foggy instantly wanted to know what Sarah and David Lieberman had asked Frank to do aside from watch their kids, which Frank did at least once a week. Foggy resolved to ask Frank to explain that enigmatic statement later. “Point is, I don’t want just some hookup. If I did, it’d be easy enough to go to...to some gay bar maybe.” 

At this, stretching himself out on his couch where Frank had slept during the night in question, Foggy stared up at his own ceiling in shock. Was Frank bi after all? 

“I never bothered to think about it after she died. She didn’t like that I was...that I’m...” A big sigh into the phone again, then a rough inhalation. Foggy bit his lip, waiting. “I don’t like any of the words. But it was a sore spot with us. Every time it got brought up, she thought I was gonna cheat on her or some shit. I loved her so much and she was the mother of my  _ kids _ and she still somehow thought--”

_ Oh my god, _ Foggy realized.  _ This is Frank coming out to me. This is Frank telling me he’s bisexual or pansexual or queer or something. Oh my god.  _ Foggy’s brain felt like it was full of exclamation points, and he flapped the hand that wasn’t holding the phone, needing to express his feelings somehow. 

“Well it doesn’t matter,” Frank finished, and Foggy almost told the phone  _ It does matter! _ “I just wanted to apologize to you. I woulda been offended too if someone came onto me like that.” And then the message ended, abrupt and awkward like so many of Frank’s communications. 

For a grand total of ten seconds, Foggy just lay there and tried to process. In those ten seconds, he thought about Matt, and the fact that some stupid young part of himself still daydreamed that Matt would come back, would say that leaving and giving up on their friendship had been a huge mistake, that he’d been bi all along, and then Matt would get down on one knee with a ring and they’d get married and adopt dogs together. But Foggy knew that would never happen. Matt had tried briefly to fix things with Karen and Karen alone, probably because he was lonely and wanted to get laid, and when they hadn’t worked out Matt had left her too. He hadn’t made any effort to fix things with Foggy. The only updates Foggy got on him were in the news. 

Matt had never called to apologize for leaving him after more than ten years. He’d never tried to fix it. Meanwhile, all Frank had done (at least to Foggy) was get a little drunk and a little awkwardly gay at him, and  _ he’d _ still found it in himself to apologize. 

As far as Foggy knew, Frank didn’t do casual anything. He was intense about his friendships and everything else he chose to do. Within a month of knowing Foggy outside of court, he’d started coming over every week with home-made food and at six months on, he’d tinkered with or improved nearly every appliance in Foggy’s house at least once. When Frank decided he wanted something, he committed a hundred percent to it. As evidenced by his massive murder spree, which he’d continued despite huge cost to himself. The scars all over him and the fact that he was now legally dead and living under a pseudonym attested to that. 

Foggy let himself imagine being committed to by Frank. 

Foggy shivered, face hot and palm sweating against his phone. 

Then Foggy unlocked his phone and called Frank. To his surprise, after only two rings Frank picked up. 

“Yeah?” he said, noncommittal and bland, like the message hadn’t happened. But Foggy knew Frank well enough by now to know that Frank hid behind the tough-guy act. 

“You wanna come over and cuddle and make out?” Foggy asked, getting the words out before the rest of his brain caught up. The n he grimaced--Frank was out of his league and probably only the desperate lack of options created by being an ex-vigilante had made him think of Foggy at all. But Foggy had already made the offer, it was too late, so now he had to soldier on.  _ “Just _ cuddling and making out, this isn’t an attempt to get in your pants,” Foggy clarified, legs curling up over his belly in dreadful self-consciousness. 

A silence of several seconds stretched between them. Then, “Yeah, all right,” Frank said. Foggy blinked. “I’ll be over in a few,” Frank added, and he hung up.

Gaping at his phone, Foggy lay paralyzed for a while, unable to believe what he had just done or Frank had just replied. Then Foggy looked around him and bolted off the couch, rushing to clean up the apartment. Normally he just dropped his stuff wherever he felt like it when he got home from work, and only cleaned up Friday evenings right before Frank and Karen came over. Given that it was Wednesday now, he’d had enough time to get messy.

Once his apartment wasn’t a total embarrassment, Foggy stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, contemplating changing his clothes. But this wasn’t a first date, not really, and it wasn’t a hot date either, not really. Would Frank feel let down to see Foggy in a well-worn t-shirt and pyjama bottoms with Captain America shields all over them? Or would the casualness of the outfit put Frank at ease?

Foggy hadn’t even eaten dinner before changing into home-clothes and checking his messages. He had been out late at the office as usual, which meant that now his stomach growled unhappily at him. 

Well he definitely wouldn’t be able to give Frank his full attention if he was hungry, so Foggy abandoned the question of clothing to go to the fridge. He still hated cooking and most of the food in his apartment was of the ready-to-eat or microwave-and-serve variety, pasta being the single exception. A microwave dinner and some fresh grapes from the market satisfied his belly, and by the time he’d put his utensils and bowls into the dishwasher, there was a knock at the door. 

Frank must’ve set out immediately and caught every train right on time to get here this fast, Foggy thought as he stood stunned by his sink. Well, that sorted out the clothing question, Foggy supposed, because he couldn’t change now. So he answered the door and smiled up at Frank, who gave him a tentative smile back as he stepped in. 

It occurred to Foggy then that tonight could go all wrong anyway. They were both awkward people. If he invited Frank in and offered him a beer, Foggy knew he’d ask Frank about his week and then they’d probably just talk instead of anything else. Which was fine, except for how it wasn’t. 

So Foggy closed the door and then moved in to stand a little too close. 

“I’m gonna get on my tippy-toes and kiss you, okay?” Foggy told him. Frank wasn’t really that much taller, only a couple inches, but the words had just popped out and Foggy couldn’t snatch them back now. Frank gave Foggy a startled look, but after a second he nodded. 

So, dinner sitting uneasily in his belly, Foggy followed through, rising onto his toes and leaning in close enough to press his mouth to Frank’s. 

His lips were soft, yielding as Foggy leaned forward into them. When Foggy subsided onto the flat of his feet again a moment later, Frank stood there breathing with his eyes still closed. 

“So, on a scale from ‘let’s get on the couch and do it some more’ to ‘I just turned straight,’ how’s that for you?” Foggy asked, anxious now. 

Frank blinked and gave him a small, crooked smile, the scars on his face moving around to accommodate. 

“It was fine, for something that lasted all of one second. Is that all you’ve got?”

Emboldened and also smiling now, Foggy dragged Frank across the room by both arms, pushed him into the couch’s loving embrace, and then climbed onto Frank’s lap. 

“This still ok?” Foggy asked, maybe a little too cautious as Frank’s arms came up and around Foggy’s waist. The weight and strength of them felt delicious. 

Frank kissed him.  _ A man of action, _ Foggy thought to himself,  _ while I am all talk. _

Kissing someone new was always a negotiation, learning how any individual moved their mouth and responded to Foggy moving his. Frank opened his mouth right away, taking Foggy’s lower lip between his own and touching it with his tongue. Foggy preferred to wait to get his tongue involved, but he allowed Frank to do what he wanted. It wasn’t like it was a hardship. 

As they kissed Frank softened under him. Foggy wouldn’t have noticed that Frank had started out tense except that (an unknown number of minutes into the kissing) he realized later how different Frank’s body was. His breathing had slowed down. His hands had stopped kneading at Foggy’s thighs, and Frank’s arms rested heavier on them now. His mouth moved slower and his thighs sprawled loose under Foggy. 

Foggy stroked down Frank’s neck, pleased with himself, and resisted the urge to grab and pull Frank’s silly earlobes. A shiver went through the other man at the light touch and an answering throb of arousal rolled up through Foggy, who sternly told his dick to be patient, since it would have to wait till Frank was gone. 

They ended up spread out on the couch, Foggy curled half on top of Frank and half wrapped around his hip, Frank’s hand in Foggy’s long hair as their swollen mouths grew lazier and lazier. 

The heat of how intensely Foggy was turned on was only matched by the total softness of Frank’s dick where it pressed against Foggy’s thigh.  _ Exactly as advertised, _ Foggy thought to himself with some disappointment. It wasn’t that he’d misled Frank, this was just a makeout sesh and nothing else. But Foggy’s dick hadn’t gotten the memo and very much wanted the kind of attention his face and neck were getting. Or a handjob, that’d be good too. Frank had gorgeous hands. 

But the image of them together occurred to Foggy then. It curdled his buzz so completely that he pulled away, blinking hard and trying to calm his wayward body down. What was he  _ doing _ making out with someone like Frank?  Frank didn’t do casual and he couldn’t possibly find Foggy attractive in any real way. Frank looked how he looked and Foggy looked how he looked and Frank was the  _ goddamn Punisher, _ how was that supposed to lead anywhere good? 

“You sure you’re into this?” Foggy asked again. Frank’s brows wrinkled up over his nose, and his hand withdrew from where it had been stroking Foggy’s ribs. 

“Look, I told you, I don’t get hard anymore,” Frank bit out, clearly thinking that was what Foggy meant. But Foggy just huffed, shaking his head. “Anyway you’re not either,” Frank grumbled. 

At this, Foggy stared down at him, heart thumping hard in his chest. Well this conversation had suddenly taken a huge nosedive into potentially very dangerous territory. 

“I mean--I’m trans?” Foggy said, too stunned to know what else to say. “You remember that, right? You’re not dissociating or something?”

Frank blinked, a look of puzzlement flickering into his eyes, causing further wrinkles on his forehead. 

“You’re trans?” Frank repeated.

Foggy pushed himself up and away but Frank’s legs were so long there was nowhere to sit except awkwardly around them, which Foggy did. So  _ this _ was where it all went wrong, in the one way Foggy  _ hadn’t _ expected to be a problem. He coughed awkwardly. 

“Yeah, I have the trans pride flag on the wall right over there, the ‘Trans Liberation Now’ stickers all over my home laptop to your left, and literally everyone in Hell’s Kitchen knows except for you apparently? And I mention it kinda regularly?” Frank looked uncomfortable, which made something sensitive in Foggy want to curl up and die. “Did you really not know?”

“No, I just thought--” Frank swallowed, staring at Foggy as though he’d grown a second head. “I just thought you were--y’know. An ally. I mean you’ve got a Black Lives Matter sticker on your laptop too and it’s not like you’re Black. How was I supposed to know?”

“The part where I mention it regularly?” Foggy said. But then it occurred to him just how often Frank  _ had _ been over while dissociated. How often he’d been fixing things or spacing out or pacing around the room while Karen and Foggy talked. And apparently Karen hadn't outright told Frank about it either, which was uncharacteristically polite of her as a cis person. “I guess you weren’t always listening for those parts of the conversation, huh.” 

After a moment of staring at each other in shock, Foggy tried desperately to lighten the mood again. “This is the first time I’ve gone stealth on a date. Which, er, means my date didn’t know I was trans until I told them, that’s trans slang. Go me I guess?” Foggy made miserable jazz hands. “I mean I was feeling self-conscious before, but now I’m like. Crawl into a hole and never come out levels of self-conscious.”

Frank’s brow wrinkled up. “Why were you self-conscious? You kiss just fine.”

Foggy blew out a breath through his lips. How were you supposed tell a ten that you were only a five on a good hair day and sooner or later they’d realize that and be disappointed? Plus now Foggy was also worried that Frank would be either more or less interested because of the whole trans thing. Either way would be bad. 

“Guys like you don’t go for guys like me unless they think I’m a fetish,” Foggy said simply. “Which I guess wasn’t an issue here, since you’d didn’t even know, but now I’m concerned it will be.”

“A fetish?” Frank said, clearly baffled.

“Because I’m trans. Or chubby, in some cases. There’ve been people who only wanted me because of my genitals, because they think I’m some perfect way to experiment with being gay without really committing. Which is shitty.”

Frank looked away, digging his hands in between his thighs. 

“Oh,” he said quietly. “I mean, I’ve never really been with a guy before. I just...made out with my best friend a few times high school. But I’m sure I’m...” He grimaced. “Ugh, fuck words. I mean this isn’t an experiment to see if I’m into guys.”

The earnestness of the statement eased Foggy’s worry a little. But only a little. 

“Well it’s not like you care about my genitals anyway, so,” Foggy offered. But now his anxiety was all stirred up and he couldn’t think of anything else. “Look, I’m sorry, I’m just--nervous. I’ve never gotten to this point with someone who didn’t know. So just...don’t be shitty about it, I guess? If you have questions, I can send you some links or something.”

Frank shrugged, staring at the floor. “I don’t care that you’re trans. Feel pretty dumb for not knowing, though, since it’s apparently this big obvious thing.”

Foggy snorted, stroking his hand over Frank’s jean-clad shins. He considered pushing the issue, inquiring into Frank’s beliefs about trans people or whether he was actually  _ interested _ in Foggy or if Foggy was just convenient. But if Foggy disliked any of the answers, did he really want to have to live with that information? He already couldn’t sleep some nights remembering the shit people had said when he came out. And the shit some people continued to say to him now. 

“You wanna make out some more?” Foggy asked instead. “Maybe with our shirts off, if you’re feeling really wild?” Maybe he didn’t have to cross-examine Frank, he thought. Maybe he could just watch Frank’s face when he was confronted by how Foggy looked when topless versus how Frank himself looked. Maybe that would be enough to convince Foggy this was a bad idea so he could end it before it went any further. 

But with a smile, Frank pulled his black shirt off, mussing his curls even further. His eyeliner had smeared a little at one corner as well. The muscles that were immediately on display made Foggy’s mouth water and his self-esteem shrivel up and die as he simultaneously wanted to get his mouth on Frank’s chest and himself into a dark corner somewhere nobody had to look at him. 

He tossed his own shirt across the room anyway. Thanks to Matt, Foggy knew that he’d rather know in advance if he was going to be let down. 

Frank didn’t even glance at Foggy’s body. He just reached out and dragged Foggy down on top of him before fitting their mouths back together. 

So Foggy settled between Frank’s legs, boxers damp with his own arousal, and tried not to think about any of it. 


	3. Hooking Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: there's a part in this chapter where Foggy fears that Frank might hurt him. Frank doesn't, but the fear of domestic violence happens in this chapter. Also, there's brief mention of suicidal ideation.
> 
> Also, cue the start of the feminization kink.

Frank spent the night on the couch again. He hadn’t gotten hard at any point, while Foggy had spent pretty much the entire time both hard and wet.

He tried not to take it personally. Frank wasn’t the type to bullshit. Yet even after vigorously jerking himself off twice in a row, Foggy found himself anxious and sleepless for over an hour.

Foggy had been angry his whole life about how people had first considered him an ugly lesbian and then a mediocre-looking gay man. He was angry about the bullying for his weight, perceived sexual orientation, and gender that he’d been subjected to for so many years.

He was disgusted by the things Frank had done. Could Foggy _really_ mess around with the _Punisher?_

Well, he thought, let’s say he could. Foggy thought maybe in the end he would _miss_ dating people who weren’t as conventionally attractive as Frank. Oh, Foggy had always _wanted_ people who were out of his league, who didn’t? But with people who looked more like Foggy himself, he wasn’t scared like this. He wasn’t worried they’d get a good look at him and feel disgust.

With Frank he _was_ afraid. He was also afraid Frank would snap and hurt someone again. That any number of the crises the city (and the country) was routinely in would push Frank to the edge and over it.

When Foggy finally fell asleep, he dreamed of being in a butcher’s shop and pushing meat-hooks through flesh.

**

Frank crawled into bed with him early the next morning, waking Foggy by pulling back the blankets and sliding himself along Foggy’s back. He kissed along Foggy’s nape before falling asleep again.

When Foggy’s alarm went off an hour later, Frank slapped it into silence and ran his hands all over Foggy’s torso, squeezing at his belly and chest with every appearance of pleasure.

Foggy barely made it to work on time and had to skip breakfast, finally shooing Frank out of the apartment so Foggy could lock it behind them both.

His mouth smarted the whole way to work, rubbed raw on Frank’s stubble.

**

Frank texted that afternoon to ask if he could come over again.

By bedtime that night, it was apparent that Frank was (to use the colloquialism) thirsty as hell, albeit with no interest in _sex._

They’d managed to watch a movie together, sort of, but the amount of hand-holding and kissing and body-touching that happened throughout meant that Foggy absorbed little else. He barely managed to pry himself away from the other man long enough to have dinner or go to sleep.

Friday arrived. Foggy expected Frank to back off because of Karen’s presence, but Frank didn’t. He kissed Foggy on the mouth to greet him, making Karen go wide-eyed and crow with delight.

“Whaaaaat is this?” she cackled, waving her hands at the both of them. Frank merely glanced at Foggy as though expecting him to explain it, then carried his dishes into the kitchen. “Are you two dating? Is it serious? Pete, you dog, I had no idea you even liked men!”

“Foggy’s a good guy,” was all Frank said, as though that explained everything. Foggy’s cheeks heated even at this mild compliment.

Perhaps sensing that Frank wasn’t willing to talk about it further, or figuring he’d volunteer any information he wanted to share, Karen grinned at Foggy instead, waggling her eyebrows at him and giving him a high-five. Foggy’s face went hotter still. Karen clearly believed that Foggy had gotten super laid with Frank. _She,_ at least, didn’t seem to have any hesitation in believing that Frank would want someone like Foggy. Or feel that Frank himself was a source of fear.

Dinner passed in total normalcy with office gossip and updates on Frank’s new part-time job. Frank also reported that Sarah and David and their kids were doing okay, all things considered. Frank spent most of his weekends at their house. Their kids were still struggling to adjust to having their father back, plus all the trauma of his exit and reentry into their lives. But apparently their family counseling was going well. Finally Frank scowled and admitted that David had found a therapist for Frank, too.

“Curtis thinks I should do it. Says the support group isn’t remotely enough for me. Fuck him,” Frank said, with no real rancor and obvious self-judgment. “That shit’s expensive, especially if I go twice a week like Curtis wants. And I hate talking about any of that shit. It’s bad enough doing it in the group.”

Foggy nodded, wondering if he should put his hand on Frank’s arm. He’d had to go to therapy to get his letters for surgery years ago, and his parents had wanted him to continue afterwards as well. At $120 per session Foggy had tried not to think too hard about the cost of it all. Back in undergrad that had been an overwhelming amount of money, eclipsed only by the cost of his surgeries.

Foggy attempted to not reminisce about how Matt had stayed with Foggy’s family to help take care of him as he’d recovered, first from top surgery in freshman year and then from his hysto in junior year. They were still sweet memories, which only made the loss feel worse.

Foggy pulled himself back to the present. He swallowed his mouthful of stir-fried broccoli and hoped he didn’t have too much in his teeth as he spoke.

“You deserve to get better, and therapy can be really helpful. I had a lot of it back in the day.”

Surprise took over Frank’s face, eyebrows lifting at Foggy, who shrugged.

“Takes a lot of work to be this perfect, much though I like to pretend it comes naturally.” Frank rolled his eyes, but he also smiled a bit, and reached over to rub at Foggy’s forearm. “So I assume that if David is recommending this person, he’s checked her out to make sure she’s okay with all the...y’know...” Foggy gestured vaguely with his fork, trying to indicate all the murders. It wasn’t a topic he liked thinking about, especially not now he was making out with the guy who probably had more than a hundred kills to his name.

“He hacked into her social media,” Frank said, blunt as ever. “She posted some stuff on FaceBook sympathizing with me during the trial, and again during the news coverage of my ‘death.’ She also works with vets and specializes in some type of therapy that’s good for trauma.”

“So when do you start?” Karen pressed, not one to beat about the bush. Foggy knew how much she worried about Frank. Frank glared at her, but then he just sighed as though put-upon.

“I’ll call her next week,” he grumbled. After that he changed the topic to Foggy’s current cases.

Foggy wondered if Frank had discussed him in the support group, or would talk about him with this therapist. Foggy also wondered what the hell he was doing being make-out buddies with a goddamn serial killer. But thinking about it too hard always ruined his day, so he instead used the tried and true method of _not_ thinking about it and drinking more wine instead.

**

One week of Frank wanting to spend nearly all of his evenings with Foggy turned into two.

Foggy accepted that he was going to be kissed into a horny oblivion. He developed a chronic bruise at the top of his dick from jerking off. Switching to a vibrator didn’t help.

But at two weeks in, in the middle of a damn make-out session, Foggy’s capacity for denial just stopped working. He was horny, as usual, and as usual his brain wouldn’t shut up about things that made him anxious. But this time it wasn’t about the way he looked but something else completely. So Foggy pulled away from Frank on the couch and looked him in the face.

“I have something to ask from you. It’s not a sexy request, so I really shouldn’t have made out with you first. It’s actually kinda serious.”

Frank’s face went cold. “Do you need someone killed?”

Wincing, Foggy pushed himself upright and shook his head. “No, no that’s--that’s the exact opposite of what I was going to ask, actually.” He took a deep breath. Why could he never shut up? Why did he always push? Well, the obvious answer was the he was a lawyer and literally trained to do that, but he didn’t like that answer.

He steeled himself with a deep breath. “I was going to say: if something happens to me someday--not that I think it’s likely but you never know in this city--but if something happens to me, I don’t want you to go on a revenge-fueled killing spree. I want you to contact the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, or...” Foggy steeled himself, taking a breath in the face of Frank’s death-stare, “or Luke Cage, or someone like them. Get some help to deal with the situation in another way, okay?”

“Why the fuck would I ask anyone else to do my dirty work,” Frank growled, clearly offended. He pulled away to the other end of the couch, gripping at the cushions with his arms locked so his triceps bulged.

A significant part of Foggy now very much wished he’d never brought this up. But if he was gonna date the Punisher, or mess around with him, or even just be _friends_ with him, they needed to address this so things didn’t end up like him and Matt.

“I don’t want you doing ‘dirty work’ anymore. That’s my point: I like you _this_ way,” Foggy said bluntly. “I like you in recovery! I like that you’re figuring out how to afford therapy rather than stockpiling guns! I like that you haven’t fucking _killed_ anyone in a while and don’t have any serious plans to do it again! I don’t want to--” he didn’t know how to label what was between them and didn’t want to put a name to it that’d scare Frank off even more than this conversation, “--to be around someone who’s killing people. It freaks me out that you did all the stuff that you did, and I don’t like thinking about it, but I’m willing to deal with my feelings on the subject. I _don’t_ want to become an excuse for you to do it again, though, no matter what happens. If I get kidnapped, or hurt, or even killed, I don’t want to have to be scared of what you’ll do.”

Turning away, Frank sat with the muscles at the corner of his jaw corded up through his skin. He let go of the cushions and instead his hands flexed in his lap, curling into fists and then letting go, over and over. He looked furious, blinking hard and breathing heavily--and real fear crept into Foggy’s heart.

Frank wouldn’t _kill_ him, Foggy believed that. But would Frank hit him? Was he the kind of man who’d beat a partner, especially a male one?

“Shit,” Frank gritted out after a long silence. “Shit, this is exactly the kind of stuff Curtis grills me about. I’m prepared for it from him, but not--” Frank swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing and a vein cording out on his neck. “Shit.”

The impulse to take his words back welled up in Foggy, and part of him wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened and just kiss Frank instead. He ignored it. He was closer to forty than thirty now, tired of bullshit, and tired of the way losing Matt still made him feel.

“Can you promise me that you’re not gonna go on a killing spree for me?” Foggy asked, keeping his voice quiet. “I know you don’t believe in the cops. I don’t either, at this point. Hard to, when you’ve been a lawyer for any length of time. Or, y’know, paid any attention to the news. But you’re not the only player in this scene, and there are other people who could take care of things if something goes wrong. Or, hell--if something happens to me, you could just get more therapy about it, like the rest of us do.”

Rising from his seat, Frank paced around the living room, looking everywhere but at Foggy.

“I don’t--” Frank began, and then cut himself off, arms jerking at his sides. “I don’t _want_ to do it again. It wasn’t a fucking cake-walk the first time. But if you’re telling me that I can’t do what needs to be done--”

“I’m not telling you anything,” Foggy corrected. “I’m saying that I want people in my life who don’t go on killing sprees. What you make of that is your business. If you’re not planning on going on another, we’ve got no issue, right?”

Frank growled, and his right hand lifted to run through his hair. He kept rubbing over a spot just above his hairline--and after a second, Foggy realized it had to be the scar from his bullet wound. Where he’d been _shot in the brain by his friend._

Even now, even having heard Frank talk about it so often, even having seen the grotesque scars all over Frank’s torso, Frank’s previous life still seemed like a nightmare rather than a real thing. Something crazy that couldn’t have happened to the nice man who listened to Shania Twain and farted shamelessly after Karen made cruciferous vegetables for dinner. The idea that the man who loved kissing Foggy so much was the same man who’d butchered his way through the gangs of Hell’s Kitchen--and been shot and tortured and beaten nearly to death more than once--didn’t seem possible.

But here was Frank, rubbing the scar from being _shot through the skull._ Probably thinking about the commanding officer who’d betrayed his trust so completely. (And just for money, no less. It turned out the man didn’t even have the excuse of being in Hydra. Foggy had checked the lists of known Hydra members and Schoonover hadn’t been among them.)

“I can’t just--if you--” Frank began to say, and then dug his knuckles into his mouth. He stopped his desperate pacing around the couch and closed his eyes, drawing in a long, hissing breath through his nose.

Then he grabbed his jacket from the hooks by the door. “I gotta go,” Frank mumbled, and disappeared into the night.

**

At around four AM, Frank slid into bed behind Foggy. Foggy jolted into wakefulness at the touch of warm hands on his waist, staring at the shapes in the darkness in incomprehension.

“Hey, it’s just me,” Frank soothed. “Shhh, it’s fine, just me. Go back to sleep.”

“You left,” Foggy accused. But he scooted over at the same time, because it had been very, very hard to fall asleep after that. Too many memories of Matt leaving. Then something occurred to him. “And I locked the door and you don’t have a key.”

“Sorry,” Frank apologized, his voice soft. “I went to go talk to Curtis. And my therapist. And went for a walk with my dog. Then I picked the lock.”

“What--what the hell,” Foggy mumbled as Frank expertly positioned himself along Foggy’s spine, twining their legs together and wrapping his arm around Foggy’s belly. It felt nice, like it had all the previous times.

The creepy part where Frank had picked the lock was a problem for Tomorrow-Foggy. Tonight-Foggy just wanted sleep.

Maybe Frank realized what Foggy was thinking, though, because he sighed. “You can tell me off in the morning, okay? I just wanna be here tonight.”

“Fine,” Foggy agreed.

He worried wouldn’t be able to sleep--again--but with Frank’s long even breaths warm in Foggy’s hair, Foggy found himself quickly subsiding back into dreams.

**

The next day was a work day, so they didn’t talk about it. Frank came over that evening instead, unasked, and sat down on the couch looking anxious. Foggy was still dressed in his work clothes. He hadn’t even had time to change before Frank had knocked on the door. Which was fine; his work clothes felt like armor, and Foggy needed armor for this conversation.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking? About finishing our conversation from last night?” Foggy asked as he moved around in the kitchen, making a dinner for both of them. In the living room Frank nodded. “So?” Foggy prompted.

For several long moments Frank just sat with his eyes closed, kneading his thighs with his hands. Then he sighed, rolled his shoulders and neck, and opened his eyes to stare at the floor.

“I shouldn’t have picked the lock. I should have just waited till today.”

“Or knocked,” Foggy suggested, feeling as though this was the obvious answer. “You realize that if you knocked and called out, I’d have come to the door like a normal person?”

But Frank just shrugged. “I didn’t want to scare you or wake you up.”

At this, Foggy couldn’t help but laugh. “So the right answer was to pick the lock and then climb into bed with me like a total creep, thus both waking me up and scaring me?”

Frank grimaced. “I’m sorry, okay. I won’t do it again.”

“Because you get that it’s creepy, right?” Foggy insisted. “Not just because I don’t like it, but because you understand that it wasn’t the right thing to do. I know I muddied the waters there by letting you stay anyway, but still.”

There was entirely too long a pause before Frank nodded, looking disgruntled.

“Okay, it’s creepy. But that’s not even the real issue here,” Frank stated.

Sadly enough, that was true. Foggy nodded.

“If something happens to you, I’d want to kill everyone involved.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Foggy shook his head. “Yeah, no, that’s not--”

“I said I’d _want_ to!” Frank burst out. The room went quiet between them for a few seconds, leaving only the sound of the microwave. The stoners next door were out tonight. “I wouldn’t actually do it,” Frank continued. “You’re right. I’m not alone anymore. I know lawyers and reporters and hackers, and it would be easy enough to contact other people who could help. And--and I _know_ how to do nonlethal work. I wouldn’t have to just...do it all again.”

Something in Foggy’s chest relaxed. He flattened both palms on the countertop, feeling the cool linoleum under his palms.

“Good,” he said at last. “That’s good to hear. And I know it must cost you a lot to say it.”

“You have no idea,” Frank whispered. “I’m only good at one thing, really. Put me in a situation in which that one thing is needed and then tell me not to do it...”

“Shut your damn mouth, Frank,” Foggy said, louder than he should have, especially when using Frank’s real name. “‘Only good at one thing’--what the hell!”

For a moment Foggy thought this had made Frank angry, but then he laughed, shaking his head.

“Damn. You and Curtis and Karen and my therapist. All of you sound alike.”

“That’s because we’re all smart!”

“You calling me stupid? That’s rude to say to a guy with brain damage,” Frank joked, turning his head to look at Foggy over the back of the couch.

Foggy rolled his eyes, relieved and happy and sad all at once. That seemed to just be how one felt around Frank.

“Well, sometimes I’m mean, and you should listen to your therapist." Foggy let out a breath, relief making him feel weak. "If I'm gonna bust your balls about anything, you better bet it's about not going on killing sprees. But both kinds of CBT turn up in my browser history, so--” Foggy said, before his brain could filter what came out of his mouth.

“Both kinds?” Frank asked, looking confused.

Foggy clapped his hand over his mouth, trying to shut himself up. But it was too late now, wasn’t it? He groaned into his own palm.

“Uhh. By a hilarious coincidence, ‘CBT’ stands for both Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Cock’n’Ball Torture. Just so you know. In case you decide to do any googling.”

Foggy wasn’t sure what response he’d expected, but it wasn’t the wicked laugh and gleeful smile he got. “And you’re into that, huh? Both kinds? You thinkin’ about actually busting my balls? Or just poking at my emotional sore spots?”

“Well--” Foggy hemmed, peering into the microwave so he didn’t have to meet Frank’s eyes. “Only in the way where you watch all kinds of weird stuff while jerking off. Y’know how it is.”

“No, not really,” Frank disagreed. “I didn’t watch porn much before. My wife didn’t like it. And now I’m not interested.”

“Well then!” Foggy clapped his hands. “Now that I have thoroughly embarrassed myself and divulged way more than necessary, dinner is almost ready. Would you like--”

Frank got up, walked through the living room into the kitchen, and wrapped Foggy in his arms from behind. Then he opened his mouth and sucked the lobe of Foggy’s ear into his mouth, which totally derailed Foggy’s train of thought. The immediate tingle it sent through his jaw and neck made him shiver. Frank’s arms just tightened around Foggy’s waist.

“My wife used to like to spank me till I couldn’t sit straight,” Frank breathed into Foggy’s ear. “One time while she was doing it she got me in the balls by accident. Turned out, having a hot naked woman nail me in the family jewels was different from just getting nutted. So she did it again. And again. We had to ice my ballsack after we finished having sex.”

Dinner was suddenly the last thing on Foggy’s mind. A weird noise escaped his mouth, something halfway between a groan and a bleat.

But then the microwave pinged. Frank let go of him to grab the bowl of soup from inside it and replace it with the second one. Then he pulled the bread out of its bag, got a bread-knife out of the relevant drawer, and started cutting slices.

Foggy considered saying he needed to go jerk off in the bathroom. But he was neither a horny teenager nor in his first years on T anymore, so he pushed the desire down, ran his hand through his hair, and coughed.

“Right. Dinner.”

“That gets you hot’n’bothered, does it?”

“Well yeah. But since neither hot nor bothered is the point this evening, I think I’ll just go change my clothes.”

“Wear that pink shirt with the triangle on the front. You look good in pink.”

With that statement ringing in his ears, Foggy disappeared into his bedroom. He found the shirt in question, a tee he’d bought at Pride last year with the inverted triangle in fushia on the front. He sniffed the pits, making sure it wasn’t too funky, and then pulled it on over sweats.

When Frank saw him, he smirked.

**

Later that evening, laid out on top of Frank like a puff of whipped cream on a thick slab of pie, Foggy wondered if Frank was driving him crazy on purpose. He had both hands around Foggy’s ass and kept absentmindedly kneading at it while rocking his hips. It was all too easy for Foggy to imagine getting a condom and some lube from the other room. Or his strap-on. Or just shoving his own hand down his pants and finishing the job right here.

When Frank pulled their mouths apart to nibble down Foggy’s neck, he let out a little huff of laughter when Foggy’ couldn’t suppress another tremble down his spine. Definitely on purpose, Foggy thought.

“Do you jerk off after I leave?” Frank asked. And yeah, that removed any lingering doubt even if Frank’s dick was still as soft as ever.

“Well yeah, of course I do,” Foggy said, burying his face in Frank’s shoulder. “Was that even a real question?”

“I figured, but knowing is nice.”

Foggy bit Frank, a hard nip just beside his jaw.

“‘Nice?’ Ugh, ‘nice’ is a coworker getting you a Secret Santa present you don’t totally hate. Meanwhile I’m going to masturbate myself to death before we even put a label on this.”

Before Foggy could even get anxious about having said that, Frank laughed. Then he bit back, this one a longer, slower sinking of teeth accompanied by a drag of his tongue. He ended it with a cute little kiss to the stinging spot.

“I mean I assumed we were dating? Why else would you bother putting me through the wringer like you did last night?”

At first Foggy grinned, delighted to hear this, but then a wave of anxiety hit him. His hands curled into fists in Frank’s hair and couldn’t make himself move or say anything.

It only took a few seconds before Frank noticed, pushing Foggy up enough to see his face. Frank’s own expression was blank in the way it often was when he was feeling something he didn’t like.

“Are we not dating?” he asked, quiet and serious.

Foggy scuttled back off of Frank’s body, leaning against the couch’s arm. He looked away.

“I mean I thought we were too. I like you kind of a lot, aside from worries about your extralegal behavior.”

Frank’s eyes narrowed. “So what’s the problem. I already promised I wouldn’t--”

“It’s not that,” Foggy hastened to say. “Well, not _just_ that. Let’s be real, that has to be a serious concern for anyone in your life at this point.”

Frank swung his legs over the front of the couch. His knuckles went white as he curled his hands into fists. Again it occurred to Foggy that maybe he should be afraid for himself rather than for other people. It was so, so easy to imagine Frank hurting people.

“So what is the fucking problem,” Frank demanded.

For a long, long pause, Foggy agonized over how not to say what he was really thinking. But there really wasn’t any way to sugarcoat it.

“You’d never be interested in me if you had better options,” Foggy said at last, miserable.

In the corner of his eye he saw Frank turn to stare at him. Then Frank just snorted dismissively.

“Yeah, well, I’d rather _be_ the guy whose family didn’t get killed and who never got shot in the head. If you figure out how to make that other guy exist so he can reject you, let me know. In the meantime, though, that guy don’t exist. I do. Why’re you thinking about him?”

Foggy barely heard the words. “Because I don’t wanna be my--” he stopped himself from saying ‘my partner’s’, just barely. Even now it still stung too much, had too many memories of Matt. “--I don’t wanna be someone’s last choice,” Foggy finished instead. “I don’t wanna be the bottom-of-the-barrel dregs that someone picks because there isn’t anything else. Or--” and this was the worst possible option, “--or because they’re so traumatized that they don’t think they deserve better.”

When Foggy dared to glance over he found Frank staring narrow-eyed at him.

“You think I’m some kinda dumbass? I know I got brain damage, but jeez. Gimme a little credit for having at least _half_ a working brain. I still know what I want.”

Foggy glared back, throwing up his hands. For some reason he felt angry now, a hard tension along his breastbone and in his legs. His thighs drew tight together. “Well excuse me for caring about your well-being! I’m just trying to look out for you!”

But Frank just rolled his eyes, fist thumping on the arm of the couch. “By insulting yourself? Shut the hell up, this ain’t got shit to do with me. This is all about you and _your_ issues, not mine. You hate yourself, I get that, believe me. I hate myself too. But you don’t see me trying to dump you for your own good.”

For a while Foggy just studied Frank, incredulous. Then he laughed, because whatever response he’d been expecting, that hadn’t been it. It was unlike anything Foggy would have pictured in his head, and after a moment it occurred to him why.

“Yeah,” he said at last. “Yeah, maybe so. Sorry, you’re right, this is my issues. It came up with one of my exes, too. Gorgeous woman. I just...” Foggy hated what the truth was here, but he could feel it inside him like a tumor. “I’m used to Matt,” he said after another pause. “With him it was either inexplicable walls between us or no boundaries at all. I was always either chasing after him, trying to get him to let me in, or having to second-guess and hound him to make him set even the smallest bit of a boundary. He’d lie to me about every important thing between us and keep me out, forget about me and take me for granted--or he’d want to spend every second of every day with me. And which it was mostly depended on whether or not he had a girlfriend.” Foggy closed his eyes, sighing. “In the end he still left anyway, so all my efforts just delayed the inevitable I guess.”

“What an asshole,” Frank spat, shaking his head. “You ever think maybe _you_ deserved better?”

Foggy looked away. “In the end I did. Why do you think Karen’s dating Curtis and Matt’s not at any of the Friday get-togethers?” Foggy let out a sigh. “Both she and I came to the same conclusion. It just took me a lot longer to figure out how shitty he was, I guess.”

“Yeah well. She’s a smart lady.”

They sat at opposite ends of the couch. Frank stared at him. Foggy stared at the blank television screen. Shifting uncomfortably, Foggy could feel where he was still wet in his underwear. To distract himself, he reached out between them, holding his hand open until Frank lanced their fingers together. They sat holding hands in the silence.

Finally Frank sighed. “This _is_ your issues. I do get it, though. You’re not a supermodel or whatever and people have been shitty to you about it. But if you think I’m one of those people, why are you even with me?”

At this Foggy turned to look at the other man. He raised an eyebrow. “What, you’ve never wanted someone you were worried wasn’t good for you?”

Running his free hand over his face, Frank shifted, then shrugged.

“Well I mean--yeah. My wife never liked that I wasn’t just into women.”

Foggy hadn’t wanted to bring it up, but now that Frank had named it himself...

“How did you two deal with that?”

Expecting some unhappy answer, Frank surprised Foggy by laughing.

“Well, aside from either not talking about it or fighting about it? She bought me a dildo.”

Foggy swallowed at the mental image. A wild tingle of response went through him. “What, really?”

“Well yeah. On her better days, she figured that if I wanted dick and she couldn’t provide it, one way she could make sure I didn’t cheat was to get me what I wanted at home.”

“Well...okay yeah, fair enough.”

Shuffling into the middle of the couch, Frank reached over and hauled Foggy’s legs up so they lay across Frank’s lap. Foggy shifted around till he got comfortable, one hand resting on Frank’s very attractive (if very scarred) bicep. He settled in to hear more about Maria.

“You and I could fuck, y’know,” Frank said instead, thus completely blowing all of Foggy’s other thoughts out of the water. Frank turned to look at him again and his mouth curved into a smug look because of whatever he saw on Foggy’s face. “I made it sound like crap the first time I brought it up. But I’m not drunk right now, so I can just tell you outright that judging by how much I liked the dildo my wife bought me, I like to bottom. And it’s not a problem for me if I don’t come or get hard. I’d probably still enjoy myself.”

For a few moments Foggy got lost in the wave of arousal that overtook him at that statement. Most of the times he’d jerked off recently, Foggy had tried to convince himself that he’d be okay bottoming more often if it was with or for someone who looked like Frank. Foggy did like bottoming sometimes, but not nearly as often as people seemed to expect of a trans guy.

But that just meant that all the thoughts he’d been using to keep his libido in check went haywire at the idea of Frank wanting him to top.

“But I mean--” Foggy’s traitorous mouth said, because he could not leave well enough alone anymore after Matt, “I mean, I don’t want sex that’s just for me, y’know? I want it to be something you want too.”

The unimpressed look Frank gave him spoke volumes. “I already fuckin’ apologized for the way I brought this up the first time. Now this is just your issues again. Or are you not into topping? Or--” Frank looked awkward, eyes cutting to the side. “Or do guys like you not do that?”

“No I really like topping,” Foggy protested, hating the croaky way it came out because all he could focus on now was how warm Frank’s hands were. One on his shin, one on his thigh. Frank’s right hand tremored a lot, had lost fine motor control thanks to nerve damage, but his left--if Frank moved his left hand up just a little higher... “I prefer it actually. I’m just feeling concerned for you. I mean if you _like_ that, if you want that--”

A sharp snort from Frank interrupted him. “If you had a dick I’d’ve already sat on it to prove my point. As it is, I’m uncertain how to convince you.”

“I have a dick,” Foggy protested. “It’s just not of a size for that. Or, depending on how we’re using this word, I have several dicks stored away in my closet. I could easily fetch one and a harness and let you prove whatever point you like on it, though.”

This earned Foggy a low, delicious chuckle and a stare that promised very good times in Foggy’s future.

“Yeah? Well what’s stopping you?”

Five minutes later, Frank lay naked in Foggy’s bed with Foggy seated cross-legged between his open thighs. All Foggy could think about was the contrast between this man and the last people who had been in this bed.

One guy Foggy had found on Scruff. He’d been covered in tattoos and piercings, with enough metal in his genitals and face to make going through airport security exciting for everyone involved. The woman before him had been a friend of Brett’s, a trans girl who had left Foggy's whole bedroom smelling like roses.

Now there was Frank. Foggy had never seen scarring like this before, and he honestly hoped he never would again. This was so far beyond Matt’s collection of scars that they weren’t even comparable. Foggy knew little enough about triage, but he could still tell what the long-term results of gunshot wounds and stabbings looked like, and right now there were so many of them on display that one could probably use them as a textbook example of something. Foggy had known Frank walked with a pronounced limp, that his dominant hand wasn’t his good one anymore, that he had physical therapy every week and needed massage treatment twice weekly just to function. But it was another thing entirely to _see_ it. Not just the little scars on his face, or the strangely-shaped knuckles on his right hand where he’d shattered one of his metacarpals into itself and let it heal that way, shortening that finger by a quarter of an inch. No, these scars were the expurgated version of the photos of Frank’s crime scenes, not bloody or gory but still a graphic history of violence written into flesh.

The way Frank was looking up at him said he knew it too. But he didn’t flinch or hide himself, just hitched one foot a little higher up the bed so his knee fell wide. It pulled tight a puckered scar on the front of his thigh and exposed the soft bump of his perineum. His balls hung low and loose above it, cock laying sweet and soft in the nest of his pubic hair.

“You still up for this?” Frank asked, his tone unreadable.

Foggy had to make himself pause. Frank didn’t mince words, which meant he was actually asking. _Do I want to stop now?_ Foggy asked himself. _Is fucking the Punisher too much for me?_

But what was the point of stopping? Foggy had already been in love with one vigilante. Why not an ex-vigilante too?

He kept gloves and lube in his nightstand. Bracing one hand on the bed at Frank’s side, Foggy leaned over him and pulled out the supplies. But Frank caught his hand, grabbing the gloves away from Foggy and tossing them back into the drawer.

“Nope. Too medical, I don’t want that shit in me. I cleaned myself out before I came over anyway so you won’t get any surprises.”

Blinking in surprise, Foggy set the lube down in his own lap and ran his hands over Frank’s thighs to give himself time to think. The thighs were warm, the dimpling and bumps of the scars obvious against Foggy’s palms.

“You cleaned yourself out, huh? You one of those guys that does that habitually, or were you planning to get lucky?”

“I mighta been hopeful,” Frank smiled, brown eyes twinkling.

“So I guess we get to have the STI talk now, then.” This was always the awkward bit, but he’d had enough practice that he knew what to say. “I’ve been having casual sex with some regularity for most of my adult life. I haven’t been tested for herpes or HPV, but I’ve never had symptoms, and my last STI screening was half a year ago and came back negative for the big-name infections, including HIV. Every sexual encounter I’ve had since then either carried no risk of STI transmission or included barrier protection, so there’s not much chance I have anything serious, but not a zero chance either.”

For several seconds Frank blinked up at him, then he smiled and shook his head.

“First time I’ve ever had anyone lay it out for me like that.” He snorted, looking away. “I was enough of a dumbass that I knocked up my girlfriend after a month of being with her because I didn’t use condoms. Wound up married with kids.” With a sigh, he finished, “I’m glad you’re smarter.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Foggy hammed up the pretense of being flattered, taking an abbreviated bow. It put his face pleasingly close to Frank’s genitals. “Seriously though, have you been tested? You’ve been exposed to an alarming amount of other people’s blood.”

“Yeahhh,” Frank lifted his arms to cross them behind his head. Something about the way he did it made Foggy think he was actually nervous and trying to hide it. “Karen took me in to a local clinic a couple weeks ago when she found out about us. I ain’t got anything, apparently, except a broken dick.”

Lifting his hand and holding it over the genital in question, Foggy paused until he got a nod from Frank before picking it up and holding it. It was soft and sweet to touch.

“I dunno, feels pretty nice to me,” he murmured. And it did.

Maybe it was because he didn’t have a dick quite like this, or maybe it was because he wasn’t as into bottoming as some, but he’d never understood all the fuss about cocks. Their size, if they got hard, when they came, how much they came, whatever. There were times Foggy liked getting fucked, yeah, but he had dildos for that, and anybody could wear a dildo. In Foggy’s opinion, the one thing no amount of silicone could improve upon was this: the warm sweetness of someone’s genitals all vulnerable to the touch. When this was what he wanted, it was far nicer if the genitals in question were soft. Foggy bit his lip, a thrill of delight going through him at the small weight of Frank’s cock.

Frank was circumcised, which meant that even here he had a scar. Foggy ran his thumb up and over the top of the bare corona, relishing the silkiness of it. Frank’s scrotum tightened up where Foggy held it and the soft cock twitched against the meat of Foggy’s palm.

“Mm,” Foggy hummed, delighted already. “Any positions you like? I’m open to suggestions, so long as you’re not expecting godlike stamina from me. I can muster minor demigod on a good day, but Zeus I am not.”

Frank laughed, even more clearly nervous now, showing it in the way his eyes darted to and away from Foggy’s face. “My spine ain’t as good as it used to be, so nothing acrobatic.”

“Heyyy,” Foggy breathed, pulling his hands away from Frank’s bits and leaning up the bed. Frank twitched away from him, just a tiny bit, with a mere flicker of his lashes and a small movement of his chin. But Foggy saw it. “Hey, big guy, you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Frank replied, automatic and too quick. When Foggy said nothing in return, Frank took a long breath through his nose. “I’m just--last time any guys were touching me, it was with fists. Knives. A drill, once. I keep thinking about the drill.”

“Do I look like them?” Foggy asked, curious and unsurprised at the same time. Part of him was already resigning itself to a very different evening than the one he’d had planned a minute before.

But Frank shook his head. “No. You got a nice face. Soft, y’know. And I really like your hair.”

Foggy dramatically tossed the aforementioned hair over one shoulder. Pouting his lips out, he tilted his head at an angle that might have been alluring on somebody like Marci and on him just looked silly. Then Foggy fluttered his lashes for good measure. Given the bare-bones little laugh Frank let out, he agreed about the silly part.

But he also reached up and ran his hands along Foggy’s scalp, gripping just a little too tight.

“We don’t have to do this now, y’know,” Foggy offered. Callused fingers ran down his neck. “We could cuddle and watch a movie. Wait till you’re not triggered.”

“I’m _always_ \--” Frank stopped himself, looking away before saying, “I’m fucked in the head,” he admitted, his eyes soft and dark. “Some days I just hide it better. Or you’re not looking at me as hard. That’s all.” He sighed. “I can kinda remember what it was like to not be like this. I remember it more when I’m with you. But more doesn’t mean much, with me.”

Foggy thought about the sweet girl he’d had in here last month. She’d had a gorgeous afro, and skin so soft that Foggy had just wanted to rub his face all up and down her belly and legs. She’d let him, for a while. Foggy was willing to bet she had never killed or disemboweled anyone. She said she didn’t date white guys seriously, but maybe Brett could introduce him to someone who did.

The thoughts passed through Foggy’s mind and he let them go. He was the go-to lawyer for superhero vigilantes in New York City now. He’d been in love with the Daredevil for ten years. Why was he even surprised to end up here, in bed with the Punisher?

“I would ask what works to help you have sex despite that, but I know you haven’t been hooking up with anybody else, and you’ve already told me you don’t jerk off much. So how about we just take it slow?”

This got another derisive snort. “We’re not at prom, sunshine, you don’t gotta talk me into putting out. It’d probably be _easier_ for me to concentrate with a dick up my ass. At least that way I’d have something to distract me from my own bullshit.”

Foggy couldn’t help his smile at that, bleak though the humor was. “Well, how about some background music, then? You ever have a violent experience while listening to Beyoncé?”

Frank smiled. “Not that I can remember.”

“Seems like a safe bet, then.”

Another minute later had her dulcet voice coming in from the living room speakers. Then Foggy took off his shirt and boxers and stood by the bed. His nakedness felt like a blazing neon sign reading MEDIOCRE but that was, as Frank had stated, Foggy’s issues.

Frank’s gaze fell heavy on him, wide-eyed and openly curious as it moved from Foggy’s own (thankfully less dramatic) chest scars to his crotch. Foggy was grateful he kept up some level of manscaping as part of his routine, because it meant his bush was merely at savannah level rather than being a full-blown forest.

“Nice,” Frank declared, nodding approvingly as he pushed himself up on his elbows. “Now I think I offered to sit on your dick. Let’s make it happen.”

“Nice!” Foggy echoed, and ran into his closet to fetch out his harness and a pleasantly medium-sized dick. Hopefully not too intimidating for a cis guy. The harness wasn’t very fancy, but it kept things in place and was easy to wash, which had been Foggy’s criteria for buying it in college. He hadn’t had any cause to regret his choice since, except for the ruthless mockery Marci had made of it, stating that it looked more like mountaineering equipment than anything sexy. But that was Marci. Foggy doubted Frank would have the same complaint.

Stepping into the harness was the work of a second, after which he popped the dildo into place along with the bullet vibe and tightened the straps till everything sat in the right place on him.

As soon as Foggy was within grabbing distance of the bed, Frank pulled him down on the mattress and rolled on top, straddling Foggy and the dildo with a grin.

“Whoa, big guy, let’s not skip the foreplay,” Foggy joked.

At that, Frank shifted to one side, awkwardly moving one leg till its foot was flat on the bed. It opened up the space between his thighs, leaving his genitals hanging vulnerably just above Foggy’s navel.

“Well c’mon, then,” Frank invited.

Foggy didn’t need to be told twice. It only took a couple moments to have his fingers slicked up so he could press them behind Frank’s balls.

Even now it was still kind of a surprise how soft Frank was all over. Some part of Foggy still expected the Punisher to be a _hard_ man, not in terms of erections but as though his skin itself would feel different. Like he had to be made of something other than just muscle to have done what he did and survived.

But Frank’s body was warm and satiny inside when Foggy slipped him a single finger, Frank’s ribs pushing up through the skin of his belly as he inhaled. A big hand squeezed on Foggy’s shoulder.

“Yeahhh,” Frank purred. “Yeah. That’s more like it.”

One finger became two, became three. They turned so Frank lay on his back, hands buried in Foggy’s hair again as he seemed to luxuriate in every movement of Foggy’s arm. The twitchiness had gone from his face, and he looked about as smug as Foggy had ever seen him.

“So how do I get you off? I--” Frank asked at last, right as Foggy slid in finger number four. The dick Foggy wore wasn’t big enough to merit this much stretching, but it felt good, presumably for both of them. Frank swallowed visibly before he managed to finish what he was saying. “Ahh--I mean when I was first thinking about this, I figured you were built like me. So you’d fuck me, come, and that’d be how we’d know it was over. I haven’t really known how to fill in the blanks since.”

“There’s a little vibrator at the back of the harness,” Foggy told him. “It’s probably not enough to do anything for you, but it’ll do something for me.”

Which it did, a few minutes later when Foggy switched it on and let Frank climb back on top. Foggy bit his lip, one hand down between their legs to hold the dildo upright as Frank lowered himself onto it. Foggy already felt overheated and disbelieving. Only the light from his bedside lamp hitting Frank’s scars (and the fact that Foggy could not possibly have come up with the grotesque details of them on his own) made him believe that this was really happening. Frank’s eyeliner, which he still habitually wore every day, had smudged around his left eye. It looked a little too much like the purple bruising he’d had when Foggy had first met him.

Frank wiggled his hips a little, sliding over the tip of the dick, and then sat down in one easy slide. His mouth dropped open and he let out a sharp grunt of what Foggy hoped was satisfaction. The insides of his thighs were warm on Foggy’s hips.

“Damn, that’s right in there,” Frank remarked. “I forgot what it’s like.”

“Right up in it,” Foggy echoed, staring at the other man.

The soft vibration of the bullet vibe (and there was an irony, using anything called a ‘bullet’ with Frank Goddamn Castle) started off just tantalizing at first. But Foggy knew himself well enough to know it’d be more than enough in a few minutes.

Frank shifted slightly, moving his hand to his thigh to massage the deep scar there, but then he lifted up before dropping back down again. Foggy lifted his hands to Frank’s waist, stroking his thumbs over the thin skin.

“However you like,” Foggy told him. He lifted his knees, putting his feet flat on the bed in case Frank wanted something to brace against. A moment later Frank did, gripping Foggy’s knees as he lifted up and then curved his hips back down.

The drag of his body pulled the dildo tight against the straps, then pressed it down over Foggy’s dick. The vibe slid just a little over the front of Foggy’s mound, up and down over the top of his slit. Sensation bloomed out from where they pressed together.

“Fuck,” Frank whispered. He worked himself up and down again, and again, and already Foggy’s skin felt oversensitive and warm. His hair stuck to his neck, damp and clinging, and spread over the pillow. “Next--next time I want an even bigger dick. If you have one.”

“Oh my god,” Foggy whimpered. “That what you want? You want me to stretch you out and fill you up?”

Frank’s dick twitched. It was still soft, but it was plumper now, a little bigger than the small shape from a minute before. Frank nodded, fingers digging harder into the flesh of Foggy’s thighs.

“You’re so damn hot,” Foggy babbled, and shit, sometimes he got like this when he was turned on enough. “I love that you wanna take my dick. We can find the perfect size for you, so every time I fuck you I fill you up just right.”

Frank’s thighs squeezed around him. Foggy’s breath was already coming short, so the tightness didn’t feel much different. His own dick twitched. The vibrations were relentless, an even hum that was only a little lessened by the movement of the harness.

“I wanna see how much of a fucking you can take before we wear you out,” Foggy murmured. Frank’s dick jumped again, balls tightening up toward his body.

Dropping one hand between Frank’s legs, he cupped the pert little shape against his palm. It still wasn’t hard, only a little blushed and a little plumped. But Frank pulled his hand away, bringing it up to his chest instead.

“That’s not gonna do anything,” Frank told him. “Don’t try to force it. Just make me feel good.”

A flash of guilt went through Foggy but it vanished just as fast. Frank was nothing if not blunt. So Foggy flicked his thumbnail over Frank’s nipple instead of being worried, then rolled the little nub against his forefinger.

Foggy knew from watching him that Frank was working his own prostate over the head of the dick, pressing into it with each roll of his hips. The straps pulled against the sensitive skin of Foggy’s inner thighs and the bottom of his buttocks. He was so wet he could feel his own parts sliding against themselves as Frank moved.

A pearl of fluid appeared at Frank’s slit, and that sight was all it took. Foggy’s fingers twitched at Frank’s chest, tightening his grip, and Foggy’s vision narrowed. The sharp cut of muscles around Frank’s hips moved--and Foggy came, pleasure blooming wide and all-encompassing inside him. He imagined himself spurting inside Frank, leaving him wet with it, and another roll of pleasure took over, shaking Foggy till he lay spent.

When Foggy’s brain came back online he blinked up at the other man, hands dropping shakily to the bed.

“Just gim’--gimme a minute--” Foggy began to say. His mouth tripped over the words.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Frank interrupted, grinning with every appearance of satisfaction. “You came, right? That’s what that was?”

“Yeah I definitely--wow.”

Frank laughed, a low, slow staccato like a stretched-out recording of a machine gun. He brought his hands around to Foggy’s belly and squeezed, kneading at the handfuls.

“How soon can you go again?”

With a groan, Foggy covered his eyes. He couldn’t even find the coordination to reach down between them and turn off the vibe, which was still going strong where he was now oversensitive. It didn’t help that Frank was still grinding down on him in little circles. When Foggy pawed helplessly at Frank’s hip to get him to stop, Frank just laughed again.

“Sadist,” Foggy whimpered. “I said gimme a minute.”

Frank dismounted instead, leaning down onto all fours with his ass in the air. Then he turned his neck to stare directly at Foggy from close-range, who couldn’t help staring back at the delicious curve of Frank’s spine and ass.

“Dammit,” he muttered, then reached down to fumble the vibe off. Climbing onto his own knees, he shuffled around behind the bed. It only took another minute to refresh the lube on his dick before sliding it along Frank’s tailbone and the loose pink hole below it.

“You sure you want it again?” Foggy asked. “Gonna take me a while to work up to orgasm number two. You’ll probably end up sore.”

Instead of answering, Frank reached back and grabbed at Foggy’s thigh, rough fingertips digging into the pudge there. Foggy took the hint, and with his finger and thumb holding the dick to the right spot, leaned forward just the slightest amount to slide into place. A quick yank on the straps pulled the dick even tighter against him, and Foggy watched with possessive delight as the inches disappeared into the yielding body below him.

The low groan Frank let out when Foggy ground against his ass sent a bolt of arousal up through Foggy. Hell, maybe it wouldn’t take as long to build back up again after all. It’d been a while since anyone had wanted this from Foggy, and he’d half-forgotten how delicious it was to watch the shift and pull of the skin around a partner’s opening as he fucked them. He pushed at Frank’s hips till he sank to just the right height, and then got down to business.

Foggy's thighs and abs would be killing him tomorrow but that was fine. It was _beyond_ fine. Foggy almost forgot he could turn the vibe back on, lost in the sight of his own glistening dick working in and out of Frank, and Frank’s shoulders and neck tensing with each push as sweat collected along his spine. His long fingers fanned out on the pillows before flexing into fists again and he let out a groan.

“Now I’m gonna wanna do this to you all the time,” Foggy admitted, stroking a shaking hand over Frank’s ass and hips. “You look amazing like this. Like a wet dream.”

“Here--” Frank grinned over his shoulder, grabbing Foggy’s hand and pulling it around to his front. Curling awkwardly down around Frank’s back to accommodate, Foggy expected to find Frank hard--but what he instead found was Frank _wet,_ wet enough that the first thing that greeted Foggy’s fingers was a long string of Frank’s juices trailing down from the soft head of his dick.

Foggy let out a shaky breath against Frank’s shoulder blade, unable to help the hitch of his hips as he ground himself against Frank’s ass. His thumb circled the silky head once, twice, unable to resist the feeling of that incredible sign of Frank’s own enjoyment, before Frank batted his hand away again.

“Still don’t feel like much to play with it when I’m soft like this. But what you’re doing back there-- _that_ feels good.”

Desperate now, Foggy thrust a hand down between them, searching for the little rubber ‘ON’ button for the vibe, and thankfully he found it quick enough. Frank twitched just a little as it buzzed to life.

“Goddamn, I wanna live in your pussy,” Foggy mumbled, trying to get himself back upright so he could fuck properly again. But that just meant he had a fine view of the shudder that went through Frank, hands leaving the pillows to curl together over the back of his neck.

“Did you like that or hate it?” he inquired, cautious. A new set of scars was visible from this side, and it didn’t do to forget which vigilante was taking his dick right now.

“Liked it,” Frank admitted, muffled by the pillows.

“Me talking about your pussy?”

Frank’s ears and shoulders and neck were red, dark in the half-light from the bedside lamp. His hands tightened, knuckles going pale in contrast. “Nn-hn.”

Foggy laughed a little, he couldn’t help it, but he had just enough brainpower left to keep the chuckle low and sexy. He thrust once slowly, twice, and then let himself fall back into a rhythm, biting his lip at the thump of the dildo’s base against him, the sticky press of his thighs to Frank’s.

He just really hadn’t expected that, when fucking the Punisher, he’d be the one wearing the dick and talking about pussy. All the big guns clearly hadn’t been compensating for an overdeveloped fear of bottoming.

“I can think of a lot of nice things to do to a wet pussy like yours,” Foggy crooned. He couldn’t keep dirty talk up, it either fell out of his damn mouth by accident or it didn’t happen at all. But the hitching moan the words earned him were enough to make him speed up, putting more force into his movements till the hum of the vibe and the pull of the straps and rhythmic pressure all lined up just right.

For long, honey-sweet moments all the sensations wound together into a tight, dense pleasure, sharper this time as his body resisted the climax right up until he fell into it.

When he came back to himself, he was gasping against Frank’s nape, hands curled tight around his shoulders.

Afterward came the awkward process of getting the harness off, the dildo out of it and into the bathroom sink, and then both of them cleaned up with a hand towel and the baby wipes Foggy kept in the bedside drawer. But it was worth it to come back from the hamper to find Frank grinning in luxuriant delight at him from the bed, legs spread and his still-soft cock flipped up on one hip.

Foggy curled around his side to kiss him under the covers, trying to ignore the way Frank’s right hand kept twitching, trigger finger curling down over and over again. Little jerky flinches went through Frank’s shoulders, too, but he kissed back with clear ardor, lacing his hand through Foggy’s hair. Foggy didn’t want to hassle Frank about something he couldn’t help--and it got easier to ignore when Frank spooned them together, right hand sandwiched between them so it couldn’t move. He breathed long and slow against Foggy’s nape.

At around four, Foggy woke when Frank got up. With a kiss on Foggy’s temple, Frank whispered “Bathroom,” and left.

Foggy was asleep again before Frank got back.

He didn’t wake again till the next morning when his alarm went off--and then he discovered the bed empty. After a brief confused moment, Foggy figured Frank had to be in the kitchen, making breakfast. But a glance into the other room showed no one.

Brow wrinkling up and heart rate rapidly climbing, Foggy found his phone, which he’d switched on silent before going to bed. Just like he always did now that Matt was out of his life.

Foggy found no less than ten lengthy texts from Karen, all of them about Frank. Foggy read through them, then hit the call button. Karen picked up after just a few rings.

“How is--” Foggy began, but Karen cut him off.

“He’s fine, now. Curtis got him calmed down. Eventually.”

Foggy dug his hand into his hair. As he did it, he couldn’t help but remember Frank’s hands there the night before.

“So he--what, had a panic attack and went to you?”

“Well, to Curtis. I was just at his place. Frank wasn’t very coherent for a while--Curtis thinks he was having flashbacks on top of the panic attack. What even happened, Foggy? Do you know? Frank wouldn’t say, he just kept talking about how he should be dead.”

Foggy stared at the wall, suddenly remembering the year Elektra broke up with Matt. Matt hadn’t had any other friends, really. He’d had colleagues and acquaintances and fuck-buddies, but Foggy had been the only person close to him. For the first couple years they’d known each other, being the only one had felt wildly flattering. Foggy had already been in love with him by that point, even though he knew well enough that Matt was straight. So he’d loved getting to be the ‘lucky’ one who got to see Matt vulnerable, to be really close to him in a way even Matt's girlfriends rarely were.

And then Elektra had happened. Which meant first that Matt completely abandoned Foggy, and then that Foggy had been the only one Matt went to during his sleepless nights, his crying jags, his panic attacks and the times he got wasted or high or both trying to cope for a few minutes at a time. It had been like having two full-time jobs: law school, and taking care of a broken-hearted Matt Murdock. Every minute they weren’t in class, they had been together, Matt desperately trying to use Foggy’s company to bandage over the damage Elektra had done to him. Matt had been delighted to support Foggy during his hysto, because it had meant even more time they could spend together and a way for Matt to give even a little bit back.

Funny to think, now, that even the _Punisher_ had enough other friends that when something went wrong with him, Foggy didn’t even find out about it till it had already calmed down.

“We had sex,” Foggy said simply. “For the first time.”

A silence on the line greeted this. Then, “Wait, really? I thought you two--”

“We haven’t been together very long. And we were taking it slow,” Foggy told her, not wanting to expose all of Frank’s private information without permission.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s...sweet. And I guess it makes sense. Frank, he--he kept talking about how he should be dead, that he left his wife behind and he didn’t deserve anyone else.”

Foggy closed his eyes. A bitter smile crept onto his mouth. “I guess I’m so good in bed I can send even a career military man into a mental break. Great.”

“This isn’t your fault,” Karen told him, sounding exhausted. At her tone, Foggy caught himself and just sighed, pulling himself together. She was tired and had been doing emotional labor all night. She didn’t need this from Foggy, too.

“Yeah, I know,” Foggy agreed. “So where is he?”

“Curtis just left with him to go to a clinic that does emergency psych med prescriptions to get him some Xanax or something. Clinic should be opening soon, so they’re probably on their way there now.”

Foggy was already planning the call he’d make to the office. Thankfully he wasn’t needed for any trials today, it was all paperwork.

“Can you give me the address? I’ll head over.”

“Maybe come here instead? Give Frank and Curtis some more time together.”

Foggy sighed again. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”


	4. Nesting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for more extensive discussion of suicidal ideation in this chapter. There's also some mild animal neglect, in the form of temporarily leaving a dog without food and bathroom breaks until his owner gets home. There's also some brief discussion of something that makes Foggy feel dysphoric.

It was too early in the day for drinking so they made hot chocolate together and added little marshmallows. Curtis was apparently a man who believed in having both high-quality hot chocolate and tiny marshmallows to hand. Foggy liked the guy already.

Curtis also had a dog and three cats. The dog was pit bull like Frank’s, but she had a brindle coat and even more soulful eyes. She sniffed shyly at Foggy’s hands before giving him a tentative lick. This, of course, meant that Foggy fell instantly in love. He cooed over her, shameless, until her tail wagged and she stared into his eyes with the expression of passionate devotion one only saw in romance movies and dogs. Curtis’ cats, meanwhile, were three ginger toms, big and disinterested as they lay around the apartment.

Foggy wanted to talk to Karen about all this, about his concerns and how his feelings for Matt were all mixed up in it. But it was too much of Frank’s private information and she was too tired, so instead they watched a movie together and didn’t talk about anything at all.

Curtis and Frank arrived an hour after the movie finished. The joys of public health institutions, Foggy supposed. It was impressive enough that they’d been seen at all in that time, much less gotten back as well.

Frank wouldn’t look anywhere near Foggy, but he didn’t look tense or ready to explode either. Which was probably just the Xanax or whatever they’d given him. Curtis, at least, shook Foggy’s hand.

“Glad you came. It’s good to meet you at last, Frank talks about you all the time.” Before Foggy could even blush, Curtis turned to Frank himself. “Hey man, you gonna be okay if we leave you to talk with him? Or should I stay?”

“It’s--it’s fine,” Frank murmured. “Go take a nap or something.”

“I’ve got a group in another hour, which you’d remember if you weren’t so strung out right now. So how about me and Karen take a nice shower together, and you come get me if you need me. Knock first in case we’re naked, okay?”

Frank’s eyes stayed fixed on the floor but he nodded, leaning into the touch when Curtis gripped his shoulder in a big firm hand. Karen smiled at Foggy, who rather thought _he’d_ like some moral support for this conversation. But Foggy let them go, and then gestured Frank toward Curtis’ thoroughly-catted couch. Given the amount of fur already clinging to Frank’s clothes, Frank had spent some time there earlier.

When he sat down, the dog put her head in Frank's lap and stared up at him with big, loving eyes. _God bless dogs,_ Foggy thought.

“We shouldn’t do this anymore,” Frank stated, quiet and calm, and Foggy’s heart turned over in his chest and ran and ran and ran.

He turned away, making himself take a steadying breath. He made himself imagine this like a court case and think strategy rather than drop into his feelings and stay there. But all he could see was Matt’s face again, and he felt like he was back in the Nelson & Murdock office watching the love of his life tell him to give up.

“Why?” Foggy asked, his voice coming out strangely normal.

Frank shrugged, looking away. “As if you ever really thought I was a good idea.”

Sweat broke out along Foggy’s nape and forehead as he flushed. Frank had him there, and Foggy didn’t like that fact. But it also wasn’t the point.

“No, you don’t get to hide behind bullshit,” he told Frank, and wondered where this blunt version of himself had been all those years with Matt. Maybe all those years with Matt had made this man. “I care about whatever’s happening for you right now, but like you said about yourself last night: give me a little credit for not being stupid, and don’t pretend your stuff is about me. Part of the reason I like you is because I thought, _here’s a man who won’t bullshit me._ So don’t.”

A vein showed on Frank’s neck when he turned his head away, looking out the window. The dog put her front legs onto his lap and made motions as if she’d jump up into it, which forced Frank to look at her and hold her in place. When he stroked her head, scratching under her collar and behind her ears, she settled back onto her haunches, eyes narrowing in bliss.

“Shit,” he said at last. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Foggy agreed. “Good assessment.”

“I should be at home, taking care of my dog,” Frank mumbled.

Foggy managed to suppress an eye roll. This was serious and he knew it; if Frank decided to feel suicidal, there was an almost one hundred percent chance he’d follow through on it successfully. He was not a man to muck about or make mistakes, especially not with weapons. And it was pointless pretending that he didn’t still have access to weapons.

“You and I can go there together next, if you want. You’ve never even let me see your place.”

“You don’t wanna see my place,” Frank said, again in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. “It’s a shithole. Max is the only good thing in it.”

Foggy just looked at the other man. Given the muscle that jumped at the corner of Frank’s jaw, that seemed to be enough to get a response.

“What _right_ do I have to get over it,” Frank hissed, finally, looking angry. “What right do I have to move on? Maria doesn’t get to get over it and move on, my kids don’t get to move on, and the--the men I killed overseas don’t get--”

Foggy reached out and wrapped his hands around Frank’s where they lay on the dog’s neck. Frank flinched at the touch, shoulders and head jerking, but he didn’t pull away.

“Will punishing yourself fix any of it?” Foggy asked.

Frank opened his mouth as if to shape a word but nothing came out. His hands moved under Foggy’s, scritching the dog again.

“It made the world better to kill all of _them,”_ he murmured. “I know you don’t believe that. I know that you don’t--you don’t agree with what I did. Not like Karen and Curtis do.”

Foggy sighed. They had all neatly avoided talking about this for months, which was on him as much as Frank.

“I don’t know what I believe,” Foggy said, which was the truth, at least. “Yeah, I hate what you did. I don’t want to believe it was necessary, both because I don’t want to live in a world where it was, but also because of what it obviously cost you to do it.” He took another breath. “But I also cannot convince myself it was all-the-way wrong, either. You got results. You exposed a man who was gonna have massive control over the whole United States and our foreign policy.” Foggy snorted. “And what it really comes down to? I’m just a lawyer who gets to debate these things because they didn’t happen to me. I don’t have a better solution that would have fixed things in time. So I don’t get to pass judgment.” He squeezed Frank’s hands. “I can accept that I don’t know what to think about what you did. Can you?”

“I don’t matter,” Frank replied, immediate and vehement. “I did what I needed to do. So I don’t matter anymore.”

“If you really believed that was true, you wouldn’t have gone back to school for a new career, or gone to Curtis’ group twice a week every week, or gone to therapy on top of that, or gone with him to the clinic today,” Foggy argued. “You’re triggered, you know that, right? You did something big and new and it dredged shit up.”

At this Frank bent, pressing his forehead to the dog’s. Delighted, she licked every part of his face that she could reach. Foggy worried he’d said the wrong thing. But finally Frank sighed, a big gusty exhalation, and straightened to lean back against the couch.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Curtis told me the same damn thing. Me yesterday would say I’m being a fucking idiot. I mean I even told you it was stupid to try to dump me for my own good because of your issues, and here I am trying to do it right back. But me today wishes I were dead.”

“Yeah,” Foggy acknowledged. “I can see that.” He swallowed. “But don’t you fucking do that to me, okay?” For a moment Foggy bit back all the things he wanted to say, but then he remembered: This wasn’t Matt. And that was the whole point, wasn’t it? “You told me I deserved better than Matt, and I do. He had major issues believing anyone wanted him. I spent years convincing Matt that I wasn’t gonna leave him, so instead he found ways to sabotage our relationship and then acted like a martyr when I wouldn’t put up with it anymore. So don’t you do the same to me, okay? Don’t you leave me now you’ve got in close to me.” Foggy snorted, mostly at himself. “Despite the many, many ways you two are different, convincing me to invest and then trying to run seems like one thing you two might have in common.”

Frank snorted, shaking his head. Foggy couldn’t tell if it was a denial, self-mockery, or what.

“You know Murdock is the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, right?” Frank asked.

Foggy blinked at him, opening his mouth to deny it or say something else just as stupid. Then he closed his mouth again.

“Yeah,” he replied at last. “I know. So does Karen. How did you--”

“He as good as told me during the trial. He and I, we had a talk right before I got arrested. He referenced some of the things I told him as the Devil. Right there in the middle of court. Then I recognized his voice. And his mouth.” Frank shook his head. “He talked to me _all_ about being a Catholic and believing in redemption. D’you know I was raised Catholic? My dad, yeah. Big-time Christian. My mom though, she was Jewish. Which I guess means I’m technically a Jew too.” Frank shook his head again. “You’d better be glad that Captain America and the Falcon and the other Avengers have been mowing through all those Nazi bases. Because otherwise, I don’t think I’d _ever_ have been able to quit. Some of the Dogs of Hell? They had ties to Hydra. So I would have gone after Hydra next.”

Swallowing hard, Foggy withdrew his hands, pulling away. It was one thing to _fantasize_ that someone else would take up arms against the evil organizations of the world, and another to hear the man Foggy had happily fucked last night say _he_ wanted to do it. It was another thing still to know Frank had _already_ done it. Foggy still got nauseated thinking of the crime scene photos.

“Promise me you won’t kill yourself,” Foggy demanded instead.

The silence that followed was too long. Nothing interrupted it but the quiet _scritch scritch_ of Frank’s blunt nails against the dog’s neck.

“Fine,” Frank agreed at last, and then heaved a grand sigh. “Fine, yeah. I guess it’d fuck you and everybody else up good and proper if I did it now.”

“Yes. Yes it would. My therapy bills would be massive.”

Another wordless space stretched between them. Finally Foggy scooted closer and pressed his side up against Frank’s. Frank let him.

“C’mon, let’s go back to your place and take care of your dog.”

**

Frank was right, his place was a shithole. The windows were small and cramped, the studio apartment itself was claustrophobic and dim, and it stank of dog crap. The dog himself jumped up on Frank’s thighs, barking sharply and trying desperately to kiss Frank.

Frank had been right: Max was the only good thing here.

He had also pooped in the kitchen. Twice. And peed. Frank just sighed and got out the supplies to clean it.

Loud music played through the wall from next door, which Foggy supposed was better than a loud domestic dispute. It still got on his nerves within minutes. The floorboards creaked, as did the ones upstairs, compounding the uncomfortable noise. Why did Frank even live here? Couldn’t he afford anything better? Maybe not, with all the various forms of therapy he needed. It wasn’t like health insurance usually covered that stuff anyway; Foggy had found that out while healing his own gunshot wound. His insurance had paid for the hospital visit, but had turned up its nose at covering the PT and massage that he’d needed afterward to actually regain function.

For a moment a fantasy of asking Frank to move in ran through Foggy’s head, but he crushed it just as fast as it appeared. Right now he was feeling less certain than ever about this whole situation, and he wasn’t going to go full codependent with Frank the way he had with Matt. He’d already seen how it ended to do that with a vigilante.

But even as emotionally numbed-out as Foggy was, he was still glad to get Frank (and Max) back to his place. Max’s claws tick-tick-ticked all over the floorboards as he sniffed everything, pacing around and around just like his owner. But Max, too, also settled readily enough onto the couch, nose touching his tail and front paws hanging over the side. Foggy wondered if he should offer to give Max a bath tomorrow night. He was a little ripe.

That night in the kitchen Frank shook out a single pill onto his palm, new sleeping drugs he’d been given by the doctor alongside the Xanax. He crashed out in Foggy’s bed half an hour later, drooling into the pillow.

Even with the now-familiar warmth and breathing, it took Foggy much longer to sleep.

Was any of this a good idea? Maybe he’d had it backwards, thinking Frank had to be desperate to date him. Was _Foggy himself_ that desperate, that he’d sink to dating the _Punisher?_

Apparently so.

The thoughts spun around and around in his mind. One minute Foggy was sure he needed to end this relationship right away, and then the next he remembered Matt’s calm departure from his life and the certainty deflated. When that happened, he circled right around to feeling too ugly for someone like Frank.

When he finally fell asleep, he dreamed of Matt. Sunlight glinted off Matt’s glasses, his hand warm where it curled around Foggy’s arm. It bore a wedding ring, a simple gold band that was a perfect match for the one Foggy himself wore. Partners in every respect.

Foggy woke already sad. Looking at Frank’s scarred-up sleeping face, relaxed and almost innocent without him thinking behind it, didn’t help.

 _I fucked this man and he wanted to die,_ Foggy thought. The rest of his brain told him how ridiculous that was, that Frank had trauma the likes of which even most trauma specialists had probably never seen before, and that the deathwish had nothing to do with Foggy’s actions or self and everything to do with Frank being a hot mess.

The shitty self-loathing part of Foggy’s brain countered with _Matt left you after ten years. He did it after committing to you enough to rent an office space together and buy a name placard with both your names on it._

Foggy didn’t want to sit still after thinking that. Sighing, he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, only to bend over and wince out a silent cry of pain at the soreness of his hips and thighs and belly. For a long moment Foggy sat hunched over, regretting the sex more than ever, before he remembered to switch his alarm off before it made noise. He left Frank to sleep.

The sleeping drugs must’ve been pretty intense, because normally Frank woke up with this level of movement. But he lay still crashed out, half on his back and half on his side, the slightest rasp of a snore curling from the back of his throat.

That was new, Frank had told him. Being able to sleep silently had been valued by his team and superiors. It wasn’t till getting his nose broken more than once during his time as the Punisher that the snore had developed. Frank had said he was considering reconstructive surgery for it. Foggy thought surgery to correct a snore that bothered no one was ridiculous.

At least Max perked up right away when he saw Foggy, trotting over and licking at his hands. Even limping and morose, it was hard to feel too bad when a cute dog was excited to see him, and even more excited for Foggy to give him kibbles. At the sound of the kibble bag opening on the counter, Max wagged so hard his whole butt ended up curved in one direction or another, spastically licking the air with his eyes huge.

Once Foggy had dressed, he was out the door and off to work without saying goodbye. The note he left on the counter was brief: _Take care of yourself today._

**

When he opened the door to his apartment that night, the smell of hot food wafted out to greet him. The scent immediately filled Foggy’s hungry mouth with saliva.

Frank sat in the living room, Max on his lap. Frank smiled when he saw Foggy, a little half-curve of his mouth.

“I cleaned up in here while you were out,” Frank remarked, which was when Foggy noticed the sparkling surfaces as well as the food-smell. “I also organized your DVDs. And CDs. They’re alphabetical by title now. And I re-grouted your tub, so uh. You actually can’t use it for another twenty-four hours while the stuff dries. Sorry.”

Foggy went over the couch, tilted Frank’s chin up, and kissed him on the mouth. Frank was freshly-shaven and smooth to the touch, lips soft and yielding.

“Thank you,” Foggy said, with real feeling. “It’s really nice having a combination housewife and handyman in here.”

For a moment Foggy worried that mentioning housewives in any context would bring up Frank’s dead wife again. But at this close range, Frank couldn’t hide the way he blushed, and his crooked smile curled up into a bashful grin.

Taking encouragement from this response, Foggy stroked the silky underside of Frank’s chin and kissed him again. Their mouths clung together as they parted.

“You like the idea of being a housewife, huh?”

Frank turned his head aside, clearly embarrassed now.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

Foggy’s stomach ruined the moment by growling loudly enough to get Max’s attention. He perked up, looking around as if expecting another dog somewhere.

Foggy didn’t remark on the way Frank set the dog aside to get up and serve Foggy himself even though Foggy was perfectly capable. Frank had made a big pot of chicken soup, and Foggy also didn’t remark on the fact that he hadn’t owned a stock pot before today. It was either Frank’s pot or yet another way Frank was trying to apologize for the night before last.

Max smelled better too. Frank must’ve washed him already.

The soup was wonderful, delicious and filling, and when Foggy remarked as much Frank ducked his chin and smiled again.

“My mom’s recipe. She loved cooking. I think she really wanted a daughter, but joke’s on her ‘cuz she got me instead. I was a shithead when I was young, never listened to anything they said, but she did teach me to cook.”

“So you really are channelling housewife energy, huh?”

This time Frank waved the idea away with his shaky right hand, as though trying to swat it like a bug. But he pinked up again too. Foggy grabbed the hand, pulling it over to lay a chivalrous kiss on the knuckles.

“No, you really _like_ that idea, don’t you?”

At this, though, Frank looked away, and his face grew serious.

“It’s stupid.”

Foggy pulled the hand closer, kissing it again on the web of flesh between fingers and thumb. Frank let him, and Foggy took that as encouragement.

“It’s not stupid, what’re you thinking about over there? You have more thoughts about being a housewife?”

For several long moments, Frank said nothing, instead bringing his left arm up to the table and hiding his mouth in it. Foggy kissed his knuckles, _one two three four,_ all of them peppered with scars.

“You’re gonna think I’m stupid. It’s gonna piss you off,” Frank mumbled into his palm.

“Maybe, but that won’t kill you, and I won’t be mean about it,” Foggy responded. Honesty was best with Frank, he figured. Not like Matt.

Looking resigned, Frank nodded. It still took him a few seconds to make any words.

“Look, it’s...sometimes I just. I have this stupid idea in my head, okay. I know it’s dumb as shit, don’t make any sense. But sometimes I have this thought, I have ever since they died, that if I weren’t a man, this wouldn’t have happened. That things could’ve been okay.”

More kisses to Frank’s knuckles. “Yeah?” Foggy prompted.

Frank shook his head at himself, and he wouldn’t look anywhere near Foggy, scanning the room like he did when he was anxious.

“I’m not trying to be insulting, okay. I know it’s stupid.”

“Insulting?” Foggy turned the idea in his head, brow wrinkling up as he tried to understand, but he couldn’t see where Frank was coming from.

“You’re trans,” Frank said, tone sharp and a little angry. “I’m not. I shouldn’t be making light of shit like this. I know gender is--it’s serious stuff for other people. I did some reading, y’know, since you told me.”

Foggy couldn’t help the delighted little laugh that escaped him, even though it made Frank’s thunderous eyebrows wrinkle up even harder.

“It’s sweet that you’re thinking about it, but you having harmless gender-related fantasies doesn’t somehow invalidate trans people. I promise.” Foggy scooted his chair closer, tickled by the effort and thought Frank had put into this, even if it had misdirected itself into guilt. Foggy tried to ignore the little butterflies in his chest as he wrapped his arm around Frank’s waist. “C’mon. Tell me more about it. I like knowing what you enjoy, even if they’re just fantasies. So in this fantasy, you’re not a man, and you and everyone else get to be safe, right?”

A long silence followed. Frank sat stiff in Foggy’s grip, and Foggy worried he’d pushed it too hard. But then Frank turned his head to press his face into Foggy’s hair.

“Yeah,” he said at last. “Maria, she--she wasn’t into girls. At all.”

Foggy wanted to turn this conversation away from Frank’s dead wife. He was worried enough about Frank’s mental state today as it was.

“Well I am,” Foggy sait, guiding the conversation back on track. “Foggy Nelson, proud bisexual, at your service.” Shifting his grip on Frank’s hand, Foggy kissed it again, this time aiming for a scar. “So go on. Tell me more about how you like being a housewife.”

A little huff of breath. “Well, if I’d been a girl--or, well, shit. If I’d been assigned a girl, sorry. I’m not good at the language yet.”

“No, keep going,” Foggy prompted, now feeling a little overwhelmed himself. If Frank knew about ‘assignment’ language, he’d really put some effort into his research. “If you’d been a girl, what would have been different?”

“None of it would’ve happened like it did,” Frank sighed. “She--Maria would have stayed safe. Married someone else, had someone else’s kids. Maybe I wouldn’t have joined up.” Frank made a grunting noise low in his throat. “Fuck, this is stupid.”

“No, not it’s not,” Foggy protested. “It’s not stupid to want things to have been better, and I’m enjoying hearing this. Tell me more, c’mon.”

“You’re just humoring me.”

“I’m really not.” Foggy’s breath was warm, reflecting against Frank’s hand and up into Foggy’s own face. The hot soup sat in his belly in the middle of the butterflies Foggy was feeling, a tangible expression of Frank’s regard.

It occurred to Foggy then, as it had so many other times, that Frank was a mess. But he was trying hard to get better, too. Frank always committed to what he did, even when he had his doubts about the mission’s success.

Frank sighed. “I was a shithead when I was a kid. I didn’t appreciate my parents when they were alive. And they both died when I was overseas. So maybe if I’d been a girl, I woulda had half a damn brain in my head when I was younger. I’d have spent some time with my mom before she passed. Gotten to know who she actually was.”

Foggy nodded, craning his neck to place a kiss beside Frank’s mouth this time. There was a lot of grief in this fantasy, Foggy could see. Decades of grief and shame his brain was trying to find a magical way to get around.

“Mm-hm.”

“I always thought--when I was younger. Fuck, I was so damn stupid when I was younger! I didn’t get why anyone would want that, y’know. To stay at home like that, have a quiet life. I was so full of piss and vinegar, thought I knew everything when I didn’t know shit. I’d never made a damn thing in my whole damn life. I just wanted to tear the whole world down. Then I got Maria pregnant, and I suddenly understood, and it was too late.”

“So what about this world in which you’re a girl?” Foggy redirected again. “What happens there?”

Frank took a deep breath, shoulder rising and falling against Foggy’s. The next breath went in halting, seeming to get stuck.

“I could have made something that didn’t get torn down,” Frank said after a moment, the words loaded with unspoken intensity. “I could have--fuck, I could have been the one getting pregnant, y’know? I didn’t even get to be there for most of the pregnancy, or the birth. I married her, I did right by her in that way at least. Took responsibility for what I’d done once I’d done it.”

Foggy clearly couldn’t get Frank away from this topic. And, he supposed, maybe they had to talk about the ghosts in every room Frank entered. That was what had come up when they’d had sex anyway.

“You get to move on,” Foggy began, cautious and worried with every word. What if saying it made Frank blow up? “You get to build something now.”

But Frank just sighed. “Yeah. That’s what Karen and Curtis said, too. And my therapist.”

“And now I’m agreeing.”

Frank didn’t seem to want to say more about it after that. He rose, taking the dishes away and putting them in the dishwasher.

The rest of the evening was quiet, watching a movie together on the couch with Max tick-tick-ticking his way around the apartment before they took him for a walk.

When they were in bed, though, the lights off and their bodies warm under the covers, Frank traced shapes onto Foggy’s arm where it curved over Frank’s belly.

“It’s dumb as hell but I really like the idea of being pregnant,” Frank mumbled.

Foggy, who’d been sleepy already even though it was early, woke up to listen.

“Yeah? Is that a sexy fantasy or a sweet one?”

“I dunno. Both? I like the idea of getting knocked up. Kinda gets me hot.”

“Getting ‘bred’ is a pretty common kink among queer men, y’know.”

“Huh.”

Foggy stroked over Frank’s stomach, ignoring the shapes of the scars and the muscles that were softening as time passed and Frank didn’t put in the work to maintain them. Foggy cupped his hand along the bottom of the belly, just above the pubic mound where the trail of hair started. Right where the bottom of a ‘baby bump’ would be.

“Got a whole life ahead of you,” Foggy murmured. “You are making something in here even if you’re not pregnant. You’re making a life for yourself.” He kissed Frank’s shoulder, stroking over the flat stomach. “I like your fantasies. Tomorrow, you should tell me more about them.”

Frank let out a put-upon huff. “Whatever. I guess, if you want.”

**

They agreed the next morning that Frank should at least stay over another night. When Frank greeted him at home that night with another hot meal it wasn’t exactly a surprise, even if Foggy wasn’t sure how Frank had found time for it around his schooling and part-time job.

The real surprise was later that night when Frank pulled Foggy into the bedroom, took his pants off, and revealed that he’d shaved his whole body--chest, belly, pubes, and legs. Ironically it made his soft dick look a little bigger, no longer half-hidden by hair.

“Holy shit,” Foggy whimpered, flattered and turned on by this display of Frank’s interest in him. “You were thinking about me while I was at work today, huh?”

Frank pressed close, looming over Foggy before grabbing his hand and placing it right on top of his dick--or rather, on the smooth skin right above his dick. “Feels weird, having my legs shaved,” Frank admitted. “Kinda numb?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I always hated that feeling on the very rare occasions I bothered to shave. You, though--damn this is nice.” He parted his fingers, stroking the silky skin above and to either side of the shaft. “You feel incredible.” A thought occurred to him. “I’ve been with girls who had bits like yours. Some of them called this,” Foggy ran his thumb down the top of Frank’s dick, “a clit. Would it be fun for you if I--”

The genital in question twitched up against Foggy’s palm. The damp, shaky breath exhaled against Foggy’s temple seemed to echo the same unspoken sentiment.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Foggy concluded. “Do you want me to touch your clit tonight, or...?”

Swallowing audibly, Frank leaned his hips into the touch, just a little. “I...I mean. It’s probably not gonna do anything. My doc says I’m too stressed for it to work right. Feels kinda nice when you touch it, though. Right now at least.”

“Can I go down on you?” Foggy asked, looking greedily down at the prettily-shaved package cradled against his fingers.

But Frank smacked Foggy’s shoulder with the back of a hand, looking grumpy.

“No point, like I just said.”

Rather than explaining himself right away, Foggy kissed him. Even despite his recent protest, Frank wrapped his arms around Foggy’s neck when their mouths met and opened right up to let Foggy inside.

When they parted some unknown, dreamy amount of time later, Foggy’s palm was sticky where he still held Frank, slicked by Frank’s response to the kiss. That heartened Foggy enough to ask again.

“I like going down better when it’s on someone soft,” he explained, murmuring the words into Frank’s lips. “Feels real good in my mouth. You sure you don’t want me to play with your clit a little? It’s okay if you can’t come that way.”

The shaking of Frank’s right hand on Foggy’s shoulder stilled as he squeezed, gripping his fingers into the soft flesh there. Testosterone had given Foggy some muscle where previously there had been none whatsoever, but in his case, the non-zero quantity of muscle still wasn’t much. Foggy tried not to think about it.

“Okay,” Frank agreed. “Okay, fine. Fine. Just so long as you--” he paused. “Look, this is for you, okay? Because _you_ like it. I don’t think it’s gonna...y’know. Work.”

“If by ‘work,’ you mean ‘feel nice for both of us,’ then yeah, I like to hope it’ll work just fine. Think of it as foreplay before I fuck you. That’s what a gentleman does for a girl he likes, right?”

This earned him a snort and an eyeroll, but Frank also pinked up. His cheeks and ears colored as he spread himself out over the bed like a platter of delicious treats Foggy couldn’t wait to get his mouth on.

Foggy started by laying himself out at Frank’s side, stroking over his shoulder and the scars there.

“Do you like having your chest played with?” he asked, stroking around the chest in question with his fingertips. He remembered Matt’s scars all too well. He was grateful that none of Frank’s scars were in anything like that configuration or it would have been too much.

Frank nodded, watching him at close range as Foggy bent down to draw a nipple into his mouth. Frank had small, pert little nipples--and he squirmed as Foggy played with them, hips shifting as his breathing deepened.

“You have such nice tits,” Foggy complimented, squeezing the other one with his hand. “I didn’t realize before that there was such a pretty girl under the rough exterior.”

“Fuckin’ stupid,” Frank muttered, clearly in disagreement. But he didn’t try to stop Foggy either, just lay back as Foggy played with his chest, squeezing one nipple and sucking the other till they were both pink and Frank was squirming against Foggy.

“Gonna let me go down on your pretty clit now, since you made it all nice for me?” Foggy asked, well aware that this too would probably be greeted as ridiculous. And Frank did indeed roll his eyes--but he shuffled one foot up the bed, too, spreading his legs to make room for Foggy to lie down between them.

Once Foggy got himself situated, he didn’t waste any more time, just bent down and drew the soft shape into his mouth. He couldn’t help the delighted groan he let out. The perfect peach-sweet texture of it on his lips, the salty human taste from the droplet pearling at the tip, the slight weight of it resting on his tongue! The first time he’d ever gone down on somebody soft it had been like a lightbulb went on inside him. Until then he’d never really gotten why people liked giving head to this genital shape, because every time anyone had ever fucked his face he’d ended up choking and nauseated and snotty no matter how turned-on he’d been beforehand. But the first time he’d had a trans girlfriend she’d asked for this, stayed soft the whole time, and Foggy had been a convert ever since.

“Aw, hell,” Frank murmured, and when Foggy looked up, he found Frank looking back down at him. Foggy pushed his hair out of his face so he could see clearer. Frank looked confused, really, eyebrows all wrinkled together over his nose, mouth open. Foggy just winked at him and then bent his head to put his expertise to work.

The yielding plushness of it was just _so good._ Frank twitched in his mouth, and when Foggy lifted one hand to cup his balls, they were tight against his palm. Frank plumped up a little as Foggy worked--but only a little. For once, Foggy wasn’t inclined to take it personally. Not if he got to keep doing this.

Frank brought his left hand up and tangled it in Foggy’s hair. His hips lifted up to meet Foggy’s mouth, but thanks to how soft he still was, all that accomplished was that Frank pressed the smooth-shaven skin of his mound up against Foggy’s lips in what felt like a kiss.

“Damn, that’s--I’m not used to doing it like this,” Frank admitted. “I kinda have to just--lie here and take it. Not used to that while getting head.”

“Mmm,” Foggy agreed, and Frank dropped his head back onto the pillow, exposing his throat. Foggy watched him swallow before swallowing himself, luxuriating in the way his tongue squashed his mouthful against his hard palate. Frank’s hips jerked.

When Foggy finally decided he was in the mood to move on, Frank was panting and half-hard. But his cock subsided just as quickly when Foggy let go of it.

“Want me to fuck you?” Foggy asked, because his dick was aching from lack of attention, and he really wanted to get inside Frank again.

The sweat on Frank’s forehead glistened as he nodded.

Foggy got on his harness first, not wanting to have to mess around with it when he was impatient and already had lubey hands. But he remembered what they’d talked about last time, about picking a bigger dick this time.

He brought out two, and didn’t even have to ask before Frank’s eyes went wide and he gestured at the longer of the two.

“Size queen,” Foggy laughed, and Frank shook his head, scowling.

“That thing’s kinda intimidating, really,” Frank said, watching as Foggy worked the dildo into place in the harness. “I hope you’re not expecting my dick to be like that. I mean, when it starts working again someday.”

“I don’t expect your clit to be anything except present,” Foggy told him, truthfully. “I like getting fucked sometimes. But you’ve got fingers, and I’ve got toys. If I want that and your clit’s not up to the job, we’ve got other options.”

The half-scowl on Frank’s face maybe indicated that he didn’t know what to think about that. But that was a conversation for another time, when they weren’t both worked-up and naked.

Frank felt just as good inside the second time around, every bit as tight and satiny as before. And watching him squirm and twitch on four fingers would probably never get old.

But this dick was long enough that Foggy worried about running aground inside Frank, so even though he loved watching Frank’s face, he told him to turn over onto his belly. The upshot of this was getting to curl down around Frank’s back and kiss his neck as Foggy slid home inside him. All Foggy’s sex-related muscles were still sore from the last time, but that was fine. He was turned on enough to ignore it. No pain no gain, he told himself.

And the noises Frank made when fucked in this position would haunt Foggy’s erotic dreams, he was pretty sure. Little wordless growls and moans deep in his throat, raspy and half-stifled in the pillows as Frank’s hands curled tight. By the time Foggy turned the vibrator on, he was already more than halfway there just from listening to and watching and feeling Frank react.

Once the hum started to spread out between Foggy’s legs, he couldn’t resist thrusting a little harder, pleased with the slapping sounds this got and the way it made Frank squirm under him.

“Fuck, that’s--fuck,” Frank groaned, eyes shut tight. “It’s almost--sometimes it almost feels like I could come like this.”

Foggy forced himself out of his lustful haze, slowing down. “Do you want me to do something different?” Foggy started to ask, but Frank scrabbled at him with his left hand, smacking his hip to get him going again.

“Fuck it, go on. You better come in me again.”

A few minutes later Foggy did, biting at Frank’s shoulder and shivering his way to stillness. Only the persistent buzz of the bullet in the harness made him move, pulling out and loosening the straps.

Once the harness was off him, tossed carelessly across the room for Future Foggy to deal with, Foggy curled up at Frank’s side, curling a tentative finger down Frank’s still-slippery tailbone.

“We could try to make you come, if you want,” he offered. “Some people can get off from prostate stimulation alone. Or you could try jerking off while I fuck you.”

For a while Frank didn’t say anything, silent and unmoving. Just when Foggy started to wonder if Frank had gotten triggered again, Frank shook his head, leaning up to kiss Foggy on the mouth.

“Another time, maybe. I’m kinda sore tonight. That thing is a monster.”

Foggy just laughed, nestling closer and pulling the blankets over them. He loved that Frank could take it. He loved that Frank stayed over afterward. He loved the way Frank rolled on top and kissed him lazily under the blankets.

There was a lot about Frank to love, really. Which was another thing for Future Foggy to worry about.

**

Frank was still there the next morning. He’d gotten up after the sex to brush his teeth and take his sleep meds, but this time he woke a little when Foggy’s alarm went off, startling at the loud noise. But he relaxed right after, huffing out a noise of protest until Foggy shut the clock off.

Foggy pressed a kiss against Frank’s cheek. “I’ll be back tonight,” he promised.

That night Frank had made lasagna. But he only picked at it, shoving it around his plate, and wouldn’t meet Foggy’s eyes.

Foggy finished his own first serving so he wouldn’t be distracted by his stomach while trying to talk to Frank. Then he pulled his chair up beside the other man’s, taking the fork out of Frank’s hand before pulling Frank’s hands down to his lap.

“You having a rough time again?” he asked.

Frank didn’t bother to deny it. He just didn’t say anything, eyes shifting restlessly around the table and the room.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

It took a while for anything to come out, a long ominous silence stretching between them that Foggy couldn’t help but fill up with bad memories of Matt.

Finally, though, Frank opened up his mouth. “I’m not good anything but...but killing,” he admitted. “Violence. Torture. That’s all I’ve ever been good at.”

Foggy stared at him. It was an awful thing to hear from a man he liked--or maybe even the man he was falling for. But Foggy _was_ hearing it, and Matt had burned down any wish Foggy had to stay in denial about the things those close to him were capable of.

“Maybe it is your superlative skill, yeah,” Foggy agreed. “You’re undeniably talented at it. Prolific. But just because that’s what you excel at doesn’t mean it is or can be the _only_ thing you’re good at. I mean, you make a pretty damn good lasagna.”

Frank just sighed. “I looked up a recipe, that’s all.”

“Just take the compliment, or there’ll be more. Oops, too late, here comes another: you’re amazing at fixing things too.”

Frank snorted, rolling his eyes, and Foggy knew that he’d won.

“You like building things,” Foggy pressed on. “Fixing things. You want things to be better than they are. You’re even doing it for yourself with all that therapy, right?”

Foggy shifted beside Frank, his hands sweating with anxiety. This time Frank didn’t move or acknowledge him in any way. He didn’t even blink.

“You thinking about killing yourself?” Foggy asked, not bothering with delicacies.

That got a flutter of Frank’s lashes, and then he sagged.

“Maybe, yeah,” he admitted. His face turned toward Foggy but he still didn’t look at him.

“You promised me you wouldn’t do it.”

“I know. I can’t...I can’t help thinking about it, though.”

Foggy took the other man’s hand, holding it and tracing the familiar battered knuckles.

“Yeah, sweetheart. I know. Will you do me a favor and come cuddle with me in bed and tell me about it?”

“You don’t wanna know about this shit,” Frank denied, but when Foggy got up and pulled on Frank’s hand, Frank came up off the chair readily enough. He followed Foggy through into the other room as well, watching impassively as Foggy took off his work clothes and got into his pyjamas instead. Frank followed him down onto the mattress and under the covers.

“You’re missing her, right?” Foggy asked.

Frank buried his face a little deeper into Foggy’s hair like he was hiding in it. He nodded.

“So tell me about her.”

“Nobody wants to know about their partner’s ex.”

“I do, and she’s not your ex,” Foggy said before he could stop himself or think better of it. Having set the statement up, he awkwardly continued, “She died married to you. It’s not the same.”

From the shaky way Frank breathed after that, he agreed. Foggy wondered if he was doing this all wrong. He wondered if Frank would get angry and hit him. He wondered if all this was a mistake.

But at last, Frank talked. In halting, hesitant words he started to describe Maria Goldberg Castle. His voice built over time, getting steadier as he went. When he’d said enough about her, he talked about Frank Junior and his older sister, Lisa. Recounted memories of his times with the kids, with Maria. What they liked, their hobbies, their house.

Foggy listened. When Frank’s voice grew hoarse and tired and he fell silent, Foggy held him.

**

The next morning Frank left the apartment with Foggy, at last taking himself and Max home. That evening Foggy resisted the urge to text Frank and tell him how empty the apartment felt without him and Max in it. Max had aggression issues just like his owner; during the night, he’d found and destroyed two pairs of shoes, including Foggy’s new-ish work shoes, and Frank had remarked that he’d have to crate-train Max sooner rather than later. Foggy’s mind immediately jumped to planning where they’d put the crate when Frank moved in. Foggy squashed the thought just as fast.

But it followed him all day. Foggy could come home to hot dinner every night. Frank could get out of that shithole and away from the neighbors who clearly triggered his impulse for violence. Would Frank want to redecorate if he were sharing the space? Would he want to get a bigger apartment together?

 _But then what?_ Foggy asked himself. What if Frank moved in and that was when he started hitting Foggy? What if there was a home invasion and it triggered Frank’s violent tendencies enough that he went off to destroy Hydra or some other dangerous group? What if someone figured out who Frank was and destroyed Foggy’s career with the information?

And even on a less life-and-death level, what if Foggy’s family found out he was seriously dating someone and asked to meet him? What was he supposed to tell them? What if they _visited,_ which they inevitably would sooner or later? What was he supposed to tell _anyone_ about his new boyfriend? No one could know about Frank. Everyone except Karen would be shocked and disgusted by the relationship. And while people might not recognize Frank on the street because of his eyeliner and long hair, inevitably _someone_ would recognize him, especially if he was with Foggy.

Well then. That fact catalyzed a thought that felt like it had been building for some time in Foggy. So he did what he usually did in situations like this: he called Marci.

The restaurant-bar they met at was reassuringly loud. Nothing they said would be intelligible by anyone else, even at the tables right next to them. It meant they had to sit right next to each other and lean close to be heard, but that wasn’t a hardship.  
  
They exchanged pleasantries till Marci spotted the waitress coming their way.

“So is this a booty call or a social call?” she demanded right as the waitress arrived. The poor young woman’s smile twitched a little, and she looked around as if unsure whether to leave. “Because if it’s a booty call you can buy me just one margarita, and if it’s a social call you’d better make it three.”

Foggy ordered four margaritas along with the appetizers. He didn’t want to have this conversation fully sober.

Once both the nibbles and the alcohol had arrived, Marci started in on him.

“So what is it this time,” she sighed, crossing her legs and leaning against his shoulder. “Unless you do want to rethink your poor life choices and make this a booty call after all?”

Sipping his drink to buy himself time, Foggy contemplated how to broach the subject.

“It’s...look, Marci, I’m with someone. The problem is that he’s real closeted, so I can’t introduce him to people or be public about it. But we’re getting pretty serious, I think.”

Marci gave him a Look. “It’s Matt, isn’t it.”

Foggy’s eyes bugged out at her, body physically recoiling. His arms pulled in toward his chest like a turtle retracting into its shell. “No!! Oh my god??”

Marci just rolled her eyes at him. “Well if it’s not Matt and you’re not just lying to me to protect him, then you have a type and it’s embarrassing. Get help, Foggy-bear.”

Foggy winced. This was exactly why they broke up, and also why he liked still having her in his life: he needed honesty from a partner, but Marci’s brand of it leaned way too far into ‘brutal’. He could just about handle it from a friend.

“Yeah, maybe,” he admitted. “My...my boyfriend is in therapy. Maybe it’s time I got back into it, too.”

“You think? Ugh, _another_ closet-case. I thought you were done with all that.”

Until recently Foggy would have said he was too. But that wasn’t the real issue here.

“So you know the kinds of clients I have a rep for taking,” Foggy began, and Marci’s eyes widened. She stared at him, the free hand that wasn’t holding her drink landing on his forearm and clutching it. “Well it turns out I also--”

“Oh my god,” she breathed before he could finish what he was saying, and he couldn’t even hear her over the din, just read her lips well enough to know what she’d said. “Oh my god!” she repeated louder. “You’re dating one of those extralegal weirdos! Oh my god you _are,_ aren’t you!”

Well there it was. Marci had always been far too perceptive as well as a little too mean in her bluntness. That was the other reason they’d broken up: there was no such thing as privacy with Marci. If there was anything she wanted to know that Foggy hadn’t wanted her to know, she’d either deduced it far too fast or dug it out with her knifelike words.

Rather than say it Foggy just nodded.

“He’s someone who’s been on the news, isn’t he,” Marci continued, and Foggy wondered if he’d have to say anything tonight or if she’d just fill in all the blanks for him. “So he’s not just closeted but infamous. Christ, Foggy-Bear. You’re a mess.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, slumping back into his chair.

“And you came to me for help figuring out how to U-haul with this nutjob.”

For a brief moment Foggy considered trying to deny it, either that he was U-hauling or that Frank was a nutjob, but there was no point.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“I’d remind you that this could ruin your career, but I’m sure you already know that because you’re only half-stupid.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he grumbled, hoping she wouldn’t hear, but of course she did. She rolled her eyes at him.

“In my favor,” he told her defensively, “he’s not currently wanted for any crimes. It’d muck things up if people found out who I’m with, but not because he’s in trouble with the law. Anymore. Technically.”

“Well whoop-de-doo.” Her lip curled, eyelashes fluttering. “So here’s what you’re gonna do: since he’s not wanted by the law, if people notice he looks like someone famous, tell them he’s a relative. Tell them he used to do look-alike appearances. Make up some bullshit, is my point. But pick a single story, work out the details with him in advance, and stick to it.”

Foggy sighed. A distant, faint hope had lived in him that there might be some other magic solution Marci could see that he couldn’t, but that hope died a quick death in the face of Marci’s statement.

“Okay,” he agreed, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Fine. Okay.”

“Then you’re going to be proactive. You’re going to introduce him to me, and your family, and anybody else you care about. You’re going to start mentioning it to our colleagues and your acquaintances that you’ve got a boyfriend who’s kinda closeted but you love him. If anyone asks, you’re going to give them the story you come up with to make sure that rumor spreads, so it’s out there under _your_ control rather than someone finding out in a way you don’t want.”

Foggy ran a hand over his face. Then he scratched at his neck, picking at an ingrown hair before he stopped himself and settled his hands back into his lap.

“Right. Control the narrative. Makes sense.”

“So: when am I meeting him? And who is this guy, really?”

For one brief moment Foggy considered lying and telling her some story. But it was already way too late for that, and she was way too bright to buy any type of bullshit.

“It’s Frank Castle,” Foggy said.

It was the first time he’d said it out loud to someone who wasn’t Karen. Marci’s eyes went wide. She blinked at him twice, two flicks of her long, perfectly-mascara’ed lashes, and then rolled her eyes, picking up her glass and downing the whole rest of the margarita.

“Christ, Foggy-bear, he's still alive? You’ve really done it this time. You should have stuck with me. At least I only eviscerate people verbally.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“I mean can the dick _possibly_ be that good? Or did Matt really just break you?”

Foggy snorted at the idea of Frank’s dick being anything but soft and unavailable. Then he shrugged.

“I wish I had a good answer for you. Realistically it’s that second one.”

“Get help. I’ll start telling people you’ve got a secret super-closeted boyfriend, but goddamn.”

Marci grilled him for further information about Frank. A small part of him felt guilty for revealing Frank’s identity like this. Another part of him felt completely justified in needing support for dating _the goddamn Punisher._ By the time he left, he was well and truly drunk, and the guilt had happily been subsumed under the alcohol.

For two whole days, Foggy and Frank had no contact. Wake up, work, return home. Wake up, work, return home. And then the morning of the third day, Frank texted to ask if he could come over.

Frank showed up in not only his usual eyeliner, but black lipstick as well. Foggy grinned as soon as he saw it, but Frank just rolled his eyes and wiped it off in the kitchen with a paper towel, clearly self-conscious. But he’d worn it out in public, and let Foggy see it, so Foggy was never gonna let it go.

“I saw it in the drugstore and figured why not,” Frank grumpily explained as Foggy pulled his face down for a kiss. Foggy could still smell a faint hint of the waxy lipstick-smell.

“Well it’s cute. Now I’m imagining you as my extremely goth housewife. Black lipstick, heavy eyeliner, a little frilly black apron, some black pumps--it’s a good mental image.”

Frank let out a noise of disgust. But he also kissed Foggy again too, the skin of his cheeks hot to the touch.

Afterward he set about helping Foggy make dinner. Given what Foggy had on hand, it wound up being sliced fruit, caramel dip, and gussied-up macaroni and cheese.

Foggy watched carefully to be sure Frank wouldn’t cut a finger off when Foggy said, “I want you to meet my family soon.”

Perhaps Foggy needn’t have worried. Frank kept right on sliding his knife through the fruit, moving from a cored apple to a pair of bananas.

“No. It’s a bad idea.”

Foggy had resistance, so he’d prepared his arguments. Last night in the shower, and today in the back of his mind during work.

“I can’t date someone long-term without telling my family and letting them meet whoever I’m dating. It’s shocking they haven’t already tried to visit while you’re here. So either this is a short-term thing, or we need to bring my family into the loop.”

Frank snorted, shaking his head. “This is fuckin’ stupid. You honestly think your family is gonna be okay with this? With me?”

“No. I don’t,” Foggy said, and something about it felt like a relief. His family had worried about all the time he’d spent with Matt, knowing Foggy was in love with him. Foggy had never told Matt that. He’d never told Matt he was in love with him, either. Now, though, he figured Matt had known both the whole time. Matt’s freaky superpowers allowed him to know so many things, surely he’d known that. “We’re not going to tell them your name.” Foggy was grateful he’d put music on before Frank arrived. “We’re going to tell them you’re Pete Castiglione, and when they inevitably comment that you look like the Punisher, we’re going to tell them you’re a relative of his, or that you’re a look-alike, or something. We’re gonna decide on our story first, obviously, and we’re gonna stick to it.”

The little paring knife hit the cutting board again with a thunk. Foggy stirred the pot of noodles as the water boiled. It occurred to Foggy once again that gory, horrific knife work was still among Frank’s many, many skills.

“Are your family really that dim?” Frank asked after a pause. Foggy started to feel affronted at this, stopped himself because he’d asked himself the same question over and over again since he’d seen Marci, and then just sighed.

“No. Probably not. But the point still stands: we can’t date long-term and not have my family at least know about you. It might work if I tell them that you’re a male celebrity and very closeted. In New York City, it’s an easy sell, and has the benefit of being kinda true.”

Foggy waited for Frank to deny the closeted part, but all he did was gather the fruit onto a plate and start arranging it. Foggy couldn’t help but be charmed that Frank was making the effort to arrange it into a pattern.

Silence spread between them for a while. Foggy attempted not to feel anxious about it. He failed. He felt anxious, he made a hundred possible arguments in his head, and then let them go. Frank went to set the fruit on the table, came back to the kitchen, and then started cleaning the knives.

“Okay,” he agreed at last, and the knot of tension in Foggy’s belly eased. “You’re right. It’s just...”

Foggy’s shoulders tensed up. He’d need to take a hot shower after this to relax. Ugh.

“I’m not used to having to deal with in-laws. My wife’s family hated me even before she died and I...I mean I knocked her up when we'd hardly been dating yet, I married her in the courthouse that week, and then I shipped back out. I came back at month six, and then I wasn’t even there for either of the births. It wasn’t what they’d wanted for their girl. They tolerated me for the sake of the kids, but that was it. I don’t even know if they visited me at the hospital when I was--”

Frank stopped, and didn’t say anything else. Foggy filled in the blank: _When I was comatose and the DA ordered the plug pulled._

“I’ve probably made their lives hell, with everything I did,” Frank finished at last. “Who wants to be known as the in-laws of...this.”

Foggy considered trying to say something about that. He gave it up as a bad idea.

“Well I’m not her, and my family aren’t hers,” he said instead. “I have no idea how my family will react to you, but they need to know _something._ They’re gonna want to know about you even if you won’t meet them directly. They’re gonna want to buy you Christmas presents and birthday presents. Maybe you could at least talk to them on the phone if you won’t meet them in person?”

Frank sighed. “Yeah. Okay, okay. I get it. I’ll--I’ll call them sometime.”

Dinner was subdued that evening. Frank seemed lost in thought. He couldn’t sit still during the movie they watched, twitchy and uncomfortable, so he went into the kitchen and started sharpening Foggy’s (very cheap and dull) knives. The sound of it made Foggy think again of all the things Frank had done, and what Frank could do to _him_ if Frank decided to do so.

But instead Frank finished two knives, proclaimed them “almost usable,” and went to bed with Foggy instead, curled around Foggy’s back and breathing into Foggy’s nape. Frank’s hand crept down the front of Foggy’s boxers, but it stopped there before Foggy had to intervene. He wasn’t in the mood.

But Frank just wanted to be close and warm, it seemed.

The next day, Frank came over again after work, and asked to get the initial call with Foggy’s family over with. Foggy stammered for a bit, protesting that he hadn’t even told them about Frank’s existence before today.

But Foggy ended up calling them, telling them the story about Frank being a very closeted celebrity, and then enduring all the noise and fuss they kicked up on the other end of the line. When he passed the phone over to Frank his anxiety spiked--but Frank stuck to the script. He talked to them about his hobbies when they asked, told them about his ‘rescue dog’ and its behavioral issues, said that he enjoyed cooking. Then he ended the call with a polite goodbye.

“I think they like me,” Frank said with surprise, handing Foggy’s phone back to him.

Foggy really, _really_ liked him. The rush of warm feelings shocked him, and since dinner wouldn’t be ready for another hour and they’d already snacked to tide them over, he dragged Frank into the bedroom.

Frank rode him again, lashes catching on his curls as he groaned around Foggy’s dick. By the time Foggy came, Frank was flushed, glittering droplets of sweat coming down his chest.

“I’m--fuck,” he swore. “It feels like I’m close? Kind of. I mean obviously my dick still ain’t doing anything.”

Still halfway to cloud nine, Foggy barely managed to scrape together the brain cells to respond to this.

“Want me to keep going?--with my hands,” he hastily amended. He was too sensitive to keep fucking Frank right away, and the buzzing of the vibe was already grating on his nerves.

“Yeah,” Frank agreed, looking almost surprised with himself. “Yeah.” He climbed off and spread himself out on the bed beside Foggy, who switched off the vibrator and got out of the harness.

Out of the corner of his eye as Foggy dealt with the dildo, Foggy saw Frank lift and give a few tugs on his soft penis. He stopped again with a growl, seemingly frustrated by its continued lack of response. But by the time Foggy got back, Frank was waiting with the lube at the ready.

So Foggy didn’t waste time in sitting down between Frank’s thighs, slicking his hand, and sliding three fingers into place. He curled them up against Frank’s prostate--and even just having come, the sight of Frank’s thighs quivering in response to Foggy’s touch was still a beautiful sight.

“You let me know if you want anything different,” Foggy told him. “Slower or shallower or anything else.”

“Uhhhh,” was all Frank said, grabbing onto the pillows with both hands.

This time, without being preoccupied with his own arousal, Foggy could give Frank his complete attention. He felt out the subtle swelling of the gland and traced it with his finger tips, dragging across it with each stroke. He wondered if Frank was capable of a pure prostate orgasm, but then decided it didn’t matter--either way this was clearly hot for both of them.  
  
Foggy fell into a kind of meditative focus. Everything narrowed down to Frank, the heat and softness of him, the way he moved. Some amount of time had passed this way--Foggy supposed he _could_ take his eyes off Frank to look at the bedside clock, but didn’t--when Frank got more vocal. His huffs of exhalation turned into groans. His hips jerked down onto Foggy’s hand, and then Frank swore and looked frustrated, clearly having altered the exact angle he wanted. He slammed a hand down against the bed when he did it again a minute later.

His cock, laying soft and pretty against his hip, seeped a pool of fluids. The glistening spill curved up over his iliac crest and trickled into the bedding--which would be gross later, maybe, but for now was one of the hottest things Foggy had ever seen. Frank Castle, wet for him and open for his touch.

“Just a bit--” Frank started to say, whimpered through his broken nose, swallowed, and then closed his eyes. “Fuck, I feel like I’m so close, I’m going mad--just a little harder? Or more movement with your fingers? Something!”

Foggy had been through this with partners before. The fumbling, the experimentation, figuring out how to make somebody come. The fact that this had in the past occurred just with women might be a pleasing factoid to share with Frank later. But in the meantime, Foggy just added a little more thrust into the curls of his fingers.

Frank nodded hard.

Foggy knew when Frank started to come. Frank’s neck arched, a vein standing out clear against the skin, and where before Frank had been making noise, he went silent, mouth open, barely breathing. One of Frank’s hands white-knuckled on the pillow by his head, the other clutched at Frank’s thigh, nails digging in near a big scar. Then the muscles of Frank’s opening rippled around Foggy’s hand, and his cock twitched, letting out white rather than clear fluids this time.

It seemed to go on and on--Foggy couldn’t tell how long it lasted, really, lost in staring at Frank’s face, flushed and disbelieving as Frank came and came and _came_ around Foggy’s fingers.

When the moment finally broke, Frank rolled half onto his side, sobbing out rough noises again with his thighs clamped down around Foggy’s arm.

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh _fuck_ goddamn--!” Frank swore, his trembling right hand fumbling down at Foggy, who cautiously withdrew his fingers and curled them so the backs of them just rested outside the soft, lax hole. It fluttered against his knuckles.

Which was when Foggy noticed how turned on he was again. Turned out that watching Frank Goddamn Castle have a prolonged climax on his hand was pretty inspiring.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Foggy asked, trying to be conscientious instead of just rushing off to wash his hands and frantically jerk off.

The warbling moan Frank let out in response to this expressed a lot while still not answering his question.

“Shit fucking damn,” Frank said. Then one corner of his mouth crooked up. “I’m--I didn’t think that was possible?”

“Apparently so!” Foggy laughed, relieved. “Congratulations, you’re among the lucky few who can have prostate orgasms!”

“I’d say we should throw a party, but I think I just had it.”

Foggy allowed himself to grin now, absurdly pleased with both himself and Frank.

“Is it rude to ask if I can jerk off to that? Because I really need to jerk off now.”

Frank laughed, releasing Foggy’s arm. Foggy trotted to the bathroom and back, returning with clean hands, and Frank dragged him down into bed and kissed him. Unable to wait any longer, Foggy shoved a hand between his own legs and set to work.

When their mouths parted, Frank lifted himself up enough to glance down Foggy’s body.

“Can I...?” he started to ask before Foggy just grabbed his hand and moved it into place.

“Stay away from the hole,” Foggy instructed. “I don’t like interacting with it. You can use the slick to make my dick wet, but stay away from it other than that.”

“Right.”

For a few wonderful moments, Foggy lay back and enjoyed Frank’s exploratory touches. He was really looking forward to having Frank give him a handjob. But then Frank withdrew his hand again, pressing his forehead to Foggy’s shoulder.

“I--can’t,” he admitted. “Shit, I’m sorry, I can’t. I want to but it feels--it just feels like a wound. I can’t think of anything else.”

For a second, anger made Foggy’s chest clutch up tight. It was _disgusting_ that Frank was like this, that he’d done the things he’d done, that he _knew_ what wounds felt like to touch--but the feeling only lasted a second. Then Foggy pushed it aside.

“Okay,” he agreed. “So not that. Can I still--”

Frank brought his hand up to his own mouth, sucking his fingers clean with a little hum of pleasure at the taste. Foggy’s brain went blank at the sight.

“You could sit on my face,” Frank offered, and then Foggy couldn’t wait anymore. He had two fingers down and stroking his dick before he could think.

“Next time,” he gasped. “Next time you can suck me off if that works better.”

Frank kissed him. Foggy hated the taste of himself in someone else’s mouth, but just then he didn’t care enough to stop it. He came a few moments later and Frank swallowed down the noises.

It hadn’t been perfect but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that it had _worked,_ that _they_ worked, that they might work _together._ The thought of it had Foggy almost as high as the orgasm itself.

**

Later that night Foggy felt less certain of how well anything was working. Frank had lain in bed with him for fifteen minutes before getting up and going into the kitchen, where Foggy had heard him puttering around and then sharpening knives again. That had been unnerving enough that Foggy had gotten up too to check in on Frank, who didn’t look at him as he approached.

“Are you--how are you doing?” Foggy asked.

“Wanna die,” Frank answered. And well, there it was. “Not gonna do that, I guess, and I don’t wanna sit there unable to sleep and thinking about all the times I’ve stuck my fingers into wounds. So I might as well be useful.”

“Seems fair,” Foggy agreed, feeling a little desperate. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Foggy said, embarrassed at the relief he felt. He didn’t want to linger on the thought that his genitals made his cis boyfriend think about _literal_ gashes, because that way lay Dysphoria City, Population: Foggy. “Have you called your therapist yet? Or, well, what would be helpful?”

At that Frank sighed, set down the whetstone and the knife, and picked up his phone from where in lay on the table by the door. Right beside Foggy’s keys.

“Go back to bed,” Frank told him. “I’m gonna be up all night, and I’ll leave early so I can take care of Max before he shits in my kitchen again.”

Foggy went into the kitchen to at least kiss Frank one last time, but when Foggy got close enough, Frank flinched away.

“No. Sorry. Can’t do it anymore tonight.”

“Okay,” Foggy said again, and managed to keep his disappointment and unhappiness out of his voice. “Can I call you tomorrow morning on the way to work? To check in?”

At this Frank nodded. So Foggy left it at that and returned to his bed, which had cooled in his absence.

Perhaps _this_ was what it was actually like, when things were working out well with Frank Castle.

**

The call the next morning was exactly what Foggy expected. The terse, reluctant words that met his questions left him no more comforted than before, feeling as distant from Frank as he ever had. But at least Frank had spoken to his therapist, and to Karen, and he promised to go to a group that night.

When Foggy reached his office and got started on his work there, thoughts about Frank bubbled away in the back of his mind, percolating like the old-fashioned coffee-maker his parents still had. Frank couldn’t stand to be close to him right now--but he was taking care of himself, and he had talked to Foggy anyway, distant or not.

It was so different from Matt. Matt, whom Foggy hadn’t spoken to in so, so long now. For a moment Foggy felt the old panic--was Matt even still alive? There had been no Devil-related headlines for more than a month. Would Foggy ever _know_ if Matt had died? Did Matt have anyone in his corner anymore? Was Foggy a bad person for letting him go? Should he have chased after Matt and forced him to accept help? Should Foggy have been more patient, more understanding, a better friend...? If Foggy had been better, more attractive or smarter or something, would Matt have listened to Foggy if Foggy? Would he have stayed?

A shiver went through Foggy. He blinked. And then he threw the thoughts away into a mental trashcan and got back to work.

 _Yes, I still want to be with him,_ he acknowledged to himself, as he so often had to. _Yes, I thought he was the love of my life when I was younger. Yes, I miss him. No, it is not a good idea to try to contact him. No, I cannot deal with a life in which I’m always panicked and on the edge of my seat, waiting for him to turn up dead._

The voice of doubt continued in the back of Foggy’s mind the rest of the day. He made a brief appearance in court, spoke to several clients, filed the relevant paperwork. The voice whispered: _How is that any different from your life now, where you’re always checking the news to see if he’s still alive?_ Worse still, the voice supplied: _Would Matt hate you for loving Frank? Would he be disgusted? Would he think you’re a hypocrite?_

Well, Foggy would probably never know, since Matt didn’t care about him or even Karen. If not even a beautiful woman could convince Matt to get help for his emotional issues, no one could.

That thought was almost comforting, except for how it wasn’t. Foggy tried to throw this whole train of thought into the garbage too. But it was too tenacious.

Would Frank come back? Or would he just walk out of Foggy’s life as well? Was it even possible for someone as damaged and terrifying as Frank to settle into anything like a normal life?

The rest of the day went by in a professional numbness. Foggy the Good Lawyer was an easy mask to slip into, affable and capable and calm. Nothing else.

Frank didn’t call that night. Nor the day after. Foggy let him be, and tried not to hate how empty the apartment felt without him. He tried not to think about how much he missed Frank’s cooking, his dry humor, his beautiful brutalized body, and even his smelly poorly-behaved dog.

Then Friday rolled around, and Frank turned up for Friday night dinner like usual. He arrived with Karen and some dishes of food, kissed Foggy on the lips like everything was fine between them, and settled into listening to Foggy and Karen’s chatter with every appearance of relief.

When Karen left, Frank stayed. He helped do the dishes, drying them as Foggy washed them. Their hands touched as Foggy handed over the flatware and forks, until finally Frank leaned down and placed a slow, prickling kiss to Foggy’s neck.

“I missed you,” he admitted, quiet and vulnerable in that shocking way Frank had. “I just needed to--I dunno. Be fucked up about coming for somebody else, I guess. Freaked me out that I liked it that much. That...that my body is doing something new for you. That it didn’t do for her.”

“Yeah,” Foggy agreed, like he hadn’t ever been afraid the distance meant anything else. “That’s...a lot. To process.”

With a put-upon sigh, Frank maneuvered a stack of dishes into the cupboard with a loud thunk. “Curtis says every relationship brings out something new in the people involved, even if there are similarities between relationships. I wouldn’t know, it’s pretty much only been a couple people I made out with in high school, a few one-night stands, my wife, and you.”

Heat crept over Foggy’s face. He’d known there hadn’t been many people, but he hadn’t quite realized exactly what an exclusive club he was now a member of. The only living member, in fact.

“I was worried you didn’t like it,” Foggy admitted, leaving out all his other anxieties. “That I’d upset you by making you come, crossed some line without realizing it.”

“Well yeah, you managed to find yet more ways I’m fucked up. I figured you knew what a wreck I am going into this, though.”

This earned Frank a wry snort. “Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna be insecure about it, though. C’mon.”

Frank shrugged, as if to say: _Take it or leave it._ So Foggy bumped their shoulders together, because he was going to take Frank as he was.

In the bathroom afterward they brushed teeth side by side. Frank took off his eyeliner with a few makeup wipes, his face looking even softer and sadder without it. When they lay down together, though, neither of them could sleep right away. With no alarm clock waiting for him the next day, Foggy let his mind wander.

“Tell me more about your housewife fantasies,” he murmured, keeping his voice quiet as if they were at a sleepover rather than alone together in his own apartment.

The sarcastic huff Frank let out at this was warm against Foggy’s shoulder.

“It’s so stupid, c’mon. Let it go.”

“It’s not stupid, it’s hot. And _emoooooootional,”_ he teased, knuckling against Frank’s shoulder.

Frank took it with grumbling tolerance. But he refused to say anything more about his fantasies until at last Foggy tried a different tactic.

“What if _I_ shared some fantasies about having you as my housewife? Is that acceptable to you, little lady?”

Frank’s hand twitched where it curled around Foggy’s hip. But he also smiled, a little. “Ugh. Can I stop you?”

“No,” Foggy decided. “No, I’m gonna fantasize all about you because I like you, and you can just deal.”

To this Frank said nothing. But his thumb swept over the dimple of flesh above Foggy’s hipbone. The sweetness of the gesture, combined with the way Frank hooked his leg just a little tighter across Foggy’s suggested that Frank was actually quite willing to listen.

“Okay, so,” Foggy began, fully prepared to bullshit this as he went. “I started testosterone in the summer before college. My parents made me wait till I graduated high school. I think they wanted me to give me a fresh start, away from everybody who’d known me since I was a toddler. Mostly what they accomplished was me being incredibly overwhelmed my freshman year, because not only was I away from home for the first time, but I was having mood swings, more pimples than anybody should be allowed to have, and was so horny I could barely function. But whatever.”

“Christ. I did--well, Karen helped me look up some information about hormones and stuff, so I could try to understand you better, but this sounds way more realistic than the general-terms shit we found.”

“Fair enough. So imagine this: I’m the horniest eighteen-year-old bisexual possibly ever in the universe. I’ve just started getting my first facial hairs, my voice is croaky and breaky and I haven’t figured out how to shave yet but am too embarrassed to ask my dad or brother for help. My beautiful hair is even longer than now, because my grandmother didn’t want me to cut it, but I’m leaning into just looking like a stoner boy instead of a girl. I am trying not to be a miserable ball of anxiety about living in the boys’ dormitory, and I’m failing.”

“Is this a sexy fantasy or embarrassing storytime?”

“It’s both apparently, shut up. I’m trying to set the scene so you can picture your knight in shining armor, who is gonna sweep you off your young feet.”

“Right right,” Frank chuckled. “I’m three years older than you, so I would have been a senior when you started.”

“Nice,” Foggy replied, really warming to his subject now. “So I’m this newbie freshman, mortified because my roommate is hot as hell and twice as Catholic and I’m worried he’s gonna psychically know I’m jerking off to the thought of him every night. And then I catch sight of this gorgeous senior girl from across the quad.”

The derisive snort Frank let out at this almost derailed Foggy, but then Frank laced their fingers together so Foggy kept going.

“She’s tall, legs for days, with dark curly hair down around her shoulders, and she’s goth as fuck. Like a real Princess of Darkness, in heavy eyeliner and a trenchcoat and six-inch heels.”

“They don’t make heels to fit me,” Frank stated.

“Sure they do, drag queens and trans girls have been doing this for decades. So there’s this gorgeous girl, I’m staring at her like the awkward idiot I am at that age, blushing and caught in a horrible feedback loop of my own awkwardness and having fantasies of kissing her bellybutton.”

“Is that a thing for you?” Frank asked, clearly determined to mock this whole experience, but whatever, Foggy didn’t care. Nothing could slow his roll now. “Kissing girls’ bellybuttons?”

“I have a thing for the way they show through a tight shirt, so sue me. So this hot tall girl is wearing a tight black tank-top under her trench-coat and I’m losing my mind a little. Which is when I realize that my roommate Matt’s talking to her, because Matt manages to somehow manifest himself near literally every hot girl ever.”

“This is Murdock we’re talking about, right?”

“Yep. He started out a heartbreaker and hasn’t changed. But this is _my_ fantasy, which means that the fact that Matt’s talking to Girl-You in it works in my favor rather than against it for once. I go over to say hello to Matt, and he introduces us.” Foggy paused for a moment. “What would your name be as a girl? We could go for the obvious, with Francine or Frannie.”

“Petra,” Frank offered, way too fast for it not to be something he’d thought about before.

Foggy didn’t comment on it, just took it and ran.

“So Matt introduces me to this gorgeous girl, Petra. We’re going to pretend that me at that age would have been capable of saying something friendly and engaging to you so that you’d be interested in talking to me again. Hell, this is my fantasy, so maybe it’s love at first sight for you, I dunno.”

“Sounds nice,” Frank mumbled, the words almost lost where Frank’s face was pressed into Foggy’s hair. “I guess in this fantasy, we’re pretending that I could have gotten into Colombia.”

“Of course. You’re there on a math scholarship.” The thought popped into Foggy’s head because he knew Frank could calculate trajectories. So maybe he’d be good at other types of math too? “So you meet me, and you’re _gone_ on me right away. Who knew that all you needed in your life was a chubby trans law student?”

Silence greeted this. Frank didn’t joke or laugh or do anything else to imply that he found it funny. And given where the whole idea of Frank’s girl-fantasy had come from, perhaps Foggy shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was.

“So you’re twenty-one and starting your thesis project,” Foggy continued, now painfully self-conscious. “I’m eighteen and just starting undergrad. We start dating, and I discover that while on the surface you might seem like a stone-cold bitch, underneath that you’re a tender, vulnerable girl who just doesn’t really know how to get close to people.”

Frank squeezed Foggy’s hand. Did that mean wordless approval? Embarrassed tolerance? Silent grief?

“Of course I fall in love with you right away,” Foggy went on, feeling like his mouth was a train he couldn’t stop now. They still hadn’t said they love each other yet. Was this too close to that? Was this inappropriate? “I mean you’re beautiful and smart. Maybe I--” Foggy started to say, and then realized his runaway train was approaching a cliff and there was no way of stopping it now. “In this alternate universe, because I met and fell in love with you, my crush on Matt doesn’t go anywhere,” Foggy whispered, his confidence gone. “I’m too busy loving you to get caught up with him. Maybe--maybe in this universe, you and I get married and move into an apartment together after you graduate, and I don’t fuck myself up trying to be everything Matt needs even though he’ll never love me back.”

“Hey,” Frank said, his voice soft. His hand wrapped around Foggy’s cheek, tilting their faces closer together where he lay curled around Foggy’s side. “Hey.”

“Shit,” Foggy gasped, and then realized he was tearing up. For several seconds he didn’t know what to do, and a tear came down his face. He didn’t want to reach up to wipe it away, because that would alert Frank to the fact that it was happening at all. “Sorry,” Foggy started to say, only to realize his voice gave him away, thick and obviously upset. “I didn’t mean for your nice fantasy to get all tangled up in my shit.”

“S’okay if the fantasy is about both of us getting rescued,” Frank soothed, and then Foggy just couldn’t help it anymore.

“I thought you weren’t gonna come back, just like Matt,” Foggy admitted, only able to do it because it was pitch-dark. “I mean I was fine, really, I went to work and kept myself fed and everything. But I guess...I guess I worried.”

To Foggy’s surprise, Frank laughed. For a moment anger sparked up in response, but it fizzled out just as fast as Foggy wiped his face. What right did he have to be angry at anyone? He hadn't been able to convince even Matt to stay.

“You honestly think I’d leave you now? Really?” Frank asked, pushing himself up on his elbow. Foggy could feel Frank shake his head. “You and Curtis and Karen _were_ my white knights. You saved my dumb ass, first by trying to help me when I was in the middle of burning the world down, and then by giving me something to live for when I finished. Why would I leave one of the only good things to happen to me in years?”

A hundred reasons immediately supplied themselves to Foggy. He bit them back, keeping them silent behind his teeth.

“I love you,” Frank offered, and there it was. “Curtis told me to wait till you said it first. Told me not to pressure you. But I’ve never been good at half-measures.”

“No,” Foggy agreed, finding Frank’s face in the dark and sliding his fingers underneath the curtain of Frank’s hair. “No, you’re not the type to leave something you’ve decided you want, are you?”

And he kissed Frank, slow and sweet, with all the feeling Foggy had been scared to let himself have since Matt had come into his life and then left it. When they broke apart some unmarked time later, Frank buried his face in Foggy’s hair again.

“I think I love you too,” Foggy admitted, and that was that.

**

Neither of them slept well that night, but to Foggy, at least, that didn’t matter half so much as the fact that Frank was there, and they were both safe and together. Sleep could happen some other night.

The next day they brought Max over for the weekend, and then had sex. This time Frank couldn’t quite come, or Foggy couldn’t quite make him, but it was still amazing and Foggy was in love. He wanted to be inside Frank forever.

He wanted to ask Frank to move in.

He didn’t. He waited till Frank left and then he called Karen to ask her if it was a good idea to ask Frank to move in.

She told him it depended on what Foggy wanted. Foggy didn’t like that answer, so he called Marci.

Marci called him a complete idiot and told him to get a therapist.

Foggy had to concede that one, so he called around, found himself a therapist, and made an appointment. The next time Frank came over, Foggy asked him to move in anyway.

Seated at the table at Foggy’s side, Frank stared at him. Max, seated on the ground and begging for scraps, also stared at Foggy, but for different reasons.

“Well shit,” Frank said under his breath after a moment. He turned his face away, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. “I mean I want to, but it’s not a good idea.”

“No?” Foggy inquired. Part of him agreed, and certainly Marci agreed, but he wanted to know why Frank himself thought that.

“If anyone finds out who I am, it looks much worse for you if I’m living here.”

Unable to help himself, a giggle of relief escaped Foggy, who desperately shoved his hand against his mouth. This earned him a glare from Frank, who clearly didn’t see any humor in this.

“No, it’s just--the legal disaster that is your history is an obvious issue, yeah. But I was worried about...us. Whether you wanted this or not.”

But Frank just rolled his eyes. He set down his fork and took Foggy’s hand instead, fingers curling around the thin point of his wrist.

“I hardly knew you when I told you I wanted to stay here forever,” Frank told him. “And I meant it. The fact that I’m now dating you and we have amazing sex hasn’t made me want it _less._ C’mon.”

Smiling helplessly at the other man, Foggy shook his head.

“Yeah, that’s...I guess that’s true. So how about this for truth: I’m gonna be in trouble if anyone finds out we’re dating no matter if you’re living here or not. So why not move in?”

With a squeeze, Frank let go of Foggy’s hand. “Can’t argue with that, I guess. I mean fuck, I’m not gonna fight you over something I want anyway. You should just be aware of the risks.”

“Well I do have one condition,” Foggy began, and at the way Frank tensed up, Foggy hurried on. “No, no--we just need to get Max better training. I don’t want him wrecking my belongings and shitting on my carpets.”

Frank let out a relieved laugh.

They researched dog training programs together after dinner, and Frank decided to keep his old apartment just in case. The payout the government had given him during their coverup was apparently enough for him to do that.

After the logistical talk was done, Foggy bent Frank over the bathroom counter and fucked him. When Foggy had finished, he turned them around, and this time Frank came easily on Foggy’s fingers, whimpering into Foggy’s hair.

**

It took depressingly little effort to get Frank moved in. Two duffle-bags of clothes and toiletries and a single armful of Max’s toys and food and bedding: that was all Frank owned that he wanted to bring with him. The dog bed went into the living room near the dining table. Frank's clothes folded neatly into two drawers of the dresser. His trench-coat took up a single hanger in Foggy’s closet.

They bought some extra pillows, because Frank finally confessed that his joints were giving him trouble sleeping on his back in Foggy’s softer bedding, and if he were to sleep on his sides he needed something to put between his knees. That was the only real expenditure required.

**

Two weeks into living together, they were making out on the couch just like the olden days when Foggy realized that Frank was hard.

At first Foggy thought it was another half-chub like Frank sometimes got. But then Frank shifted, and the firm shaft of it dug into the flesh of Foggy’s belly. That was pretty unmistakeable.

Pushing himself up with one hand, Foggy reached down between them with the other. A single pull with one finger had Frank’s underwear down far enough to reveal what lay beneath.

“This is new,” Foggy murmured.

Frank stared down his own body, eyebrows all scrunched together over his nose. He hadn’t bothered to apply eyeliner today, but the expression of baffled irritation was plain enough even without the heavy black lines to emphasize it.

“What the hell,” he said, looking almost angry.

It was strange to see Frank hard like this for the first time. Foggy was so used to Frank being soft, or at best half-mast. But now, with veins raised up all along the sides of the shaft and the head purpled with stifled bloodflow, it was like suddenly Frank has a whole new sex that Foggy had never encountered before.

And for all the ways Frank was impressive, his cock was sweetly average. It wasn’t quite small, but compared to the rest of him (and to Foggy’s own collection of dicks), it looked almost petite. A surge of fondness went through Foggy.

“I, uh,” Frank said at last. “Well I guess--I guess I can top for once.”

The resignation in Frank’s tone got a snort of amusement from Foggy, who gave him a Look in return.

“Try to sound a little _less_ enthused about fucking me. Otherwise I might start to think you only want me for my genitals.”

For a moment Frank continued scowling. But then he relaxed back into the couch cushions, arms falling to his sides in defeat. He smiled.

“Well I dunno. I thought maybe...I mean you said you wanted that sometimes?”

“Sure, eventually. Every once in a while, and only in my ass. But I like fingers better.”

“Huh,” Frank said, looking at Foggy in surprise. His dick had already softened, returning to the plump-but-flexible in-between state with which Foggy was much more familiar.

“I would love to go down on you like this, though,” Foggy offered. “I could sit on your face afterward. We could trade off.”

This time, for the first time, Frank got hard again easily enough--especially when Foggy called the genital in question ‘a pretty little clit.’

Once Frank had come, it turned out he loved sucking dick as much as he loved taking it. Foggy came once, almost tapped out, but gave into peer pressure when Frank wanted to keep going. Foggy couldn’t say he felt any regret about it.

After that, Frank’s erections happened more and more frequently, though they were still inconsistent and didn’t always last. When Foggy sat down to think about it, it made sense, though; Frank had hated his old apartment, hated leaving Max, hated living alone. By his own report, he hadn’t eaten or slept well there. He still rarely slept well with Foggy, either, often leaving the bed to pace or sharpen knives or surf the internet. But remove some of that stress from his life, and maybe his body had the energy to do other things again.

In Foggy’s apartment--their apartment, now--Frank cooked every night. He invited Curtis and Karen over for dinners, he told stories about his coworkers, he played with Max, and he attended therapy every Monday and Thursday after work without fail. He did his physical therapy exercises for half an hour every morning, and often again during the nights when he couldn’t sleep. He went to the veterans’ support group at least once a week with Curtis, and he took Max to trainings like a responsible pet parent. He called Foggy’s family every other week, talked to a revolving set of Foggy’s family members, and seemed to have charmed them all.

He settled into Foggy’s life like he’d been designed to be there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's one more chapter after this, but I haven't finished it yet. Comments will probably get me to write faster! I'll hopefully get it out within the next week.


	5. Coming Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter at last!!!! This fic has been more than a year in the making. 
> 
> Thanks to my partner for all the reading and encouragement that went into this, they're the main reason I finished this. But thank you also to the people who read and commented and also helped motivate me to write.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: part of this chapter discusses death and mourning, and specifically the deaths of Frank's family. If you're sensitive to discussion of death and mourning, heads-up about this chapter. There's also some moments of internalized fatphobia/lookism.

Foggy got home from work and emptied his pockets onto the table by the door. His keys clattered onto the hard surface and his wallet followed them with a much lighter thud. Ringing noises like a wooden spoon hitting the sides of a saucepan told Foggy that Frank was cooking again, probably stirring something, and the warm, gravy smell suggested a meat dish for dinner. Toeing off his shoes and pulling at his tie, Foggy walked around the corner into the kitchen with a joking, “Honey, I’m ho--oooooly shit.”

He got about halfway through the word ‘home’ before he trailed off into the stunned expletive. Because there stood Frank, all six feet of him, made taller still by blood red satin heels. His miles of legs were completely bare, pert ass framed by the sides and bow of a frilly black apron. Frank was wearing nothing but that and, when he turned partway, his usual eyeliner. 

“Welcome home,” he grinned, clearly pleased with himself.    
  
Foggy couldn’t do anything but stare for several long seconds before his brain came back online and he said, “Is this why you were texting me all afternoon asking me how my day’s been and if I’d be in the mood tonight?”

Frank just smiled again, shifting his weight so his ass flexed. The sight of it drew Foggy across the kitchen like a bullet to a magnet. 

Frank didn’t move as Foggy got two full handfuls of that backside and squeezed. Foggy was already thinking about which dick he wanted to wear. Frank just let out a low hum of approval, pausing as he stirred what looked like cookie dough to brace himself on the counter. 

“Oh my god,” Foggy breathed. “Oh my god.” All his blood had rushed south, he could barely  think, he felt overheated in his stiff work clothes. “Oh my god. I have the best housewife ever.”

At this Frank chuckled, low in his chest, and bent over a little farther in invitation. Foggy slid one hand further inward, curling into the warm, soft place between Frank’s legs, and found it silky-smooth. Frank must have shaved earlier today to be this soft. 

He also found Frank  _ wet, _ already slicked up so that when Foggy’s thumb skated over his hole, the tip accidentally dipped right inside. Foggy let out a whimper, forehead thumping against Frank’s shoulder blade in helpless overwhelmed arousal. Foggy’s dick throbbed, and he could so picture having a dick large enough to just slip right inside Frank right now. He was clearly ready and it would just ease right in....

“Lemme just--I’m gonna--be right back,” Foggy babbled, and ran into the bedroom to get undressed. Normally he tried to hang up his suits properly so he didn’t have to iron them more than necessary, but this was an emergency and he just tossed his clothes onto the bed and hoped they wouldn’t wrinkle too much. He got the harness on in record time, grabbed the lube bottle just in case, and jogged back into the other room, holding the strap-on so it wouldn’t smack him in the thighs. 

He found Frank seated neatly on the couch this time, legs crossed at the knee, a towel already laid out under him and a pillow on the floor in front of him. This image too sent another wave of arousal through Foggy. It left him dizzy. 

Frank had even moved the coffee table, making his intentions extra clear. Well, far be it from Foggy to deny his boyfriend if he wanted to get fucked in the living room. Foggy sank to his knees in front of the couch, running his hands up the glossy skin of Frank’s calves before hooking one palm under Frank’s knee and uncrossing his legs. The apron covered up Frank’s genitals, but it had skewed sideways a bit and one nipple showed around the side, small and pinkish-brown. Foggy leaned forward, capturing it with his mouth as he settled into the warm space between Frank’s thighs. Frank’s hands went immediately to Foggy’s hair, curling through it and holding him in place.

Being surrounded by Frank in this way was so hot Foggy thought he might die before he even got his dick in Frank. He pulled at Frank’s nipple with his tongue, nursing at it, and Frank’s belly twitched under him. With the small portion of Foggy’s brain that was left, he moved one hand between their bodies. His thumb curled around Frank’s soft bits as Foggy’s fingertips sought that wet, waiting hole. 

A shock went down Foggy’s spine when he found it even wetter than before. One finger sank in with barely any resistance--and a little gush of slick followed it when he withdrew, destroying what was left of Foggy’s brainpower. Foggy dropped his mouthful and let out a shaky breath against the soft linen of the black apron. Distantly he realized that Frank must have used some sort of lube-shooter to get himself like this, possibly even a second time while waiting for Foggy to get undressed. But what fell out of Foggy’s mouth was: “Oh, honey, your pussy’s so wet for me. Were you waiting all day for me to get home?”

The helpless noise Frank let out at this was incredibly relatable to Foggy. 

They kissed, desperate and then lazy by turns as Foggy got his fingers in. Frank was so wet and soft inside and Foggy’s dick throbbed, wanting to be where his fingers were. A few minutes later he eased himself in, Frank’s legs up on Foggy’s shoulders and Frank’s hands gripping the couch cushions. From the hectic pink color of his cheeks, he was just as affected as Foggy was. 

As Foggy began to fuck Frank in earnest, Foggy offered up a quick moment of gratitude for all the practice he’d gotten in recent months. His muscles no longer protested from disuse when he topped, now fully in shape from the regular exercise of keeping Frank satisfied. Stealth abs, Foggy supposed, still hidden under their layer of padding. 

Frank looked so beautiful, prettied up and taking it so well, that even despite the exquisite way this felt, a thick pall of shame settled over Foggy. It sank into his pores, sticking to his skin with the sweat that trickled down the side of his neck. Frank stared up at Foggy, groaning, and Foggy wanted to hide. But there was nowhere to run to, this close together and facing each other, so Foggy just let his face drop so at least his hair hid his features. But tilting his head down like this just made Foggy keenly aware of the sensation of his double chin pressing against his neck, and that was worse. 

It was a relief to come, a relief to let the sensation of it wash away everything else. It was a relief to yank at the straps of the harness, letting it fall to the floor so Foggy could climb up next to Frank on the couch to bury half his hand inside him instead. Frank couldn’t  _ watch _ him in this position. 

It was a relief that Frank came, gorgeous and willing and long, drowning out the smell of the dinner he’d cooked with the scent of his own pleasure. 

At least Foggy could do this. 

“Goddamn,” Frank husked out, right hand gripped into Foggy’s hair like he had to keep Foggy from fleeing. Maybe he did--Foggy wanted to protest that he needed a shower, to escape from the intimacy of this and be ugly and frightened in another room. He couldn’t stop thinking that he had to be red-faced and sticky, unpleasant to look at and touch. His belly fat was crowding Frank’s body so that he was smushed into the cushions. 

Frank’s entrance twitched against Foggy’s knuckles, a final shiver after the big show.

“Goddamn,” Frank repeated again. “God  _ fucking _ damn. We should do this again.”

“Yeah?” Foggy asked, noncommittal, and smiled to make it convincing. At least Frank liked what Foggy could make him feel. That had to make up for the way Foggy looked, right?

“Yeah,” Frank purred, and pulled Foggy’s face around to kiss him. It felt so good, not least because it meant that Frank had his eyes closed as long as their mouths touched. 

But after not nearly long enough, Frank pushed them both upright. Foggy subsided onto his knees beside the couch, and Frank settled back onto the towel. This time he was much less tidy and poised, his hair going everywhere and jizz smeared all over the apron, which sat askew over one hip and thigh. 

“So I got a question for you,” Frank beamed down at Foggy, who thought even more strongly of retreating into the bathroom. Foggy was wet between the thighs, and while that normally didn’t bother him, right now it made him want to crawl out of his own skin. He genuinely did want to wash. And then cover himself up with loose clothes so his imperfections weren’t so glaring. 

“Mm?” Foggy forced himself to lift his gaze from Frank’s knees to his face--but halfway up that climb, Foggy’s eyes caught on what Frank had in his hands. 

In his unsteady right palm Frank held a little red velvet box. He popped it open and then braced it with his steadier left hand, revealing a plain gold band nestled inside. 

The red of Frank’s heels matched the red of the jewelry box, Foggy noted distantly. And Frank must have hidden it in between the couch cushions, which explained why he’d wanted to have sex here rather than in the bedroom. It occurred to Foggy then that while he was the one on his knees, of _course_ Frank would be the one to propose. 

“So,” Frank smiled. “You wanna make an honest woman of me?”

Foggy just stared at the little box and the little gold ring inside. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. The eloquence which was the heart of his career abandoned him. 

“Or not,” Frank added after a long pause, swallowing. “You don’t have to. I didn’t mean to--to pressure you. I just thought--”

Foggy’s hands shook as he wrapped them around Frank’s even less steady ones. The prickle of tears started in the margins of his vision. He didn’t dare touch that precious metal, he was still too sticky and dirty and so, so ugly. 

“I’m going to say yes,” Foggy croaked at last. “Just not right now. I’m not--I’m not ready yet.”

The stillness in Frank implied nothing of calmness and everything of a sniper’s patience, watching and watching and watching. Braced for someone’s death. 

“Come shower with me,” Foggy begged. He’d wanted to do it alone, but now there was a little velvet box and everything that meant. He couldn’t make his brain understand the thing. He wanted to disappear. He didn’t want to let Frank out of his sight.

So they stood together in silence under the water, Foggy leaned up against Frank with his arms around Frank’s waist as Foggy just stared at the wall. Frank said nothing the rest of the evening, but he climbed into bed beside Foggy and pulled him up against his side. 

“I don’t wanna wait if you’re just gonna tell me you don’t want me anymore,” Frank said at last. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked that way, but I thought--”

“I meant what I said,” Foggy interrupted, surprising even himself. He forced a deep breath in, and then let it out slow through his nose. “I’m going to say yes, Frank. I’m just--”

Frank waited for a while for the rest of the sentence before prompting the rest of it. “Just...?”

_ Thinking of Mattie, _ Foggy finished, but didn’t say it.  _ Thinking of all the years I waited for this from someone who didn’t have the ability to keep anyone, much less me.  _

“Scared,” he said instead. “Scared you’ll regret it. Or that something will happen to me and you’ll fall apart. Or any number of things.”

Frank snorted. “Right, because if you stay as my boyfriend rather than my husband, that’ll mean I’ll stay a paragon of mental health if something happens to you. We passed that exit on the road  _ miles _ back, sunshine.”

At this, the barest huff of a laugh escaped Foggy, humorless and small. “Yeah, I guess so. And if we’re married, I can’t be made to testify against you, so there’s that, too.”

“Nice. Real romantic reason to say yes.”

Foggy closed his eyes, burying his face in Frank’s shoulder and holding his breath for several long seconds. Frank was angry. He had a right to be. Foggy was scared. He had a right to be.

Then he sat up, twisting around to switch on the bedside lamp. 

It illuminated the little velvet box, which Foggy had brought in and placed on his nightstand. Foggy picked it up. He cradled it in his palms like a baby bird, something he might kill if he touched it carelessly. He didn’t dare open it again. 

“Who are we even gonna be able to invite to the wedding?” he asked, and it was a stupid, unkind question and completely the wrong one. 

“I thought we’d figure that out after you said yes,” Frank said, blank-faced and neutral. “If you said yes.”

“I--I want to?” Foggy murmured. “But I can’t just walk around my life with a new wedding ring on my finger and not have people ask, Frank. I can’t just get married and not tell my family, my friends. Even if we elope, people are going to ask so many more questions about my secret husband than they would about my closeted boyfriend.”

And those were all real concerns. But the one that pushed up underneath them was:  _ You’ll regret picking me. Or I’ll regret picking you. I don’t want either of us to be something we regret later like I do with Matt. _

“So wear it around your neck,” Frank replied, voice hard-edged. “I don’t need everyone to know about me. Probably best if they don’t. But I-- _ I _ need to know.”

Foggy couldn’t make himself turn to look at Frank. Instead, Foggy rubbed his thumb over the velvet, feeling the soft touch of it against his fingerprint. 

“What do you mean?” Foggy asked at last.

“I need to know that I can finally relax, maybe.” Frank shifted, pulling his thigh away from where it leaned on Foggy’s. “That I have a home again. That I...I finally got to come home from deployment.” He swallowed audibly and Foggy’s fingers spasmed on the box. “I thought I had,” Frank went on, and there was just the smallest hint of something scared in the words rather than angry. “I thought my active duty was finally over. But it turns out the war followed me home.” He let out a harsh snort, especially audible through his broken nose. “You, though--some days I can actually believe that you’re not gonna stab me in the back like Billy did. That maybe I could trust, again, y’know. In you, and Curtis and Karen, and David and Sarah and their kids.” Out of the corner of Foggy’s eyes he saw Frank lift his arm to wipe at his face--was Frank crying? “My family’s dead, and there’s no justice to be had for that despite everything I did, not really, but--y’know, these days it seems like you all are trying to let me have another family? And I can’t--I can’t replace them, but I can--” 

Frank trailed off. 

Dragging in a deep breath, Foggy made himself set the little box aside and turn to look at Frank. 

Frank didn’t look back. He stared at the wall, and the trigger finger on his right hand twitched and twitched and twitched. Foggy curled his own hand under Frank’s, pulling it up to his mouth to wrap his lips around the top of that restless digit and hold it still. 

Frank turned to look at him. Foggy still couldn’t meet his eyes, just sighed so that the warm air of it flowed down over Frank’s wrist.

_ Just fucking say the thing, _ Foggy told himself.  _ You’re a talker. So talk. _

“I’m--I’m scared,” he admitted. “I’m scared that later, years from now when you’ve had more time, that you’ll think I’m a mistake. That once the initial excitement of getting to fuck a guy has worn off, you’ll think I’m ugly. You’ll realize you were just...desperate. Or lonely. And that it wasn’t about me at all.”

_ It was never about me with Matt, _ Foggy thought. That was what had made the ending of their friendship so painful: the sudden acknowledgement that all along, Foggy had just been convenient. And when he wasn’t anymore, he no longer had a place in Matt’s life.

Being in love with Matt had been terrible. More than a decade of feeling undesirable and guilty for his fantasies of being wanted by Matt. Foggy still felt ashamed thinking about it, because in a way he had  _ liked _ that Matt was blind. It had meant that with at least one person in all the world, Foggy was free from self-consciousness about the way that he looked. 

But Frank just scoffed, a harsh noise in the back of his throat. Turning to look, Foggy was greeted by a blunt look of disgust. 

“This horseshit again? Really? I thought we’d gotten past this.”

“Yeah, I...I can’t just move past years of bullying and then getting abandoned by my best friend after more than a decade,” Foggy gritted out, lip curling. “I get that it’s not like what you’re dealing with. Nobody shot  _ me _ in the head and then murdered my whole family. They’re not comparable. But my feelings aren't just petty bullshit, either. Do you actually  _ get _ that this is important to me? Knowing that you want  _ me, _ not just the stability I represent right now when you’re having a hard time?”

Frank stared at him, face cast into craggy shadows by the dim half-light. It was so different from how soft and sweet he’d been earlier in the day, waiting for Foggy on the couch. 

Then Frank looked away. He pulled his hand back, crossing his arms over his belly. And it was such a gesture of uncertainty--of being vulnerable and scared despite the bulging of his biceps and the hard lines around his eyes--that something in Foggy softened. 

“I don’t know how to give you a real answer. About whether I want you or if I’m just desperate,” Frank admitted at last. “I don’t wanna believe that’s what this is. I don’t think it is. But how am I supposed to know? How am I supposed to prove it to you when I’d only find that out years from now?”

And there it was. No wonder Frank had gotten defensive. He liked feeling like he had all the answers, didn’t he?

For a moment Foggy closed his eyes. Because Frank was right: how was he supposed to know? And in the meantime, Foggy was turning down an earnest proposal from someone who loved him whom he loved back. Was  _ Foggy _ the one sabotaging this now? Pushing Frank away because Matt had passed on his inability to allow himself to be cared about?

He picked up the velvet box. Twisting, he handed it over to Frank. 

Frank’s face fell, and in a flash it occurred to Foggy how his gesture had been misinterpreted as a rejection. 

“Ask me again,” Foggy explained, squeezing Frank’s arm reassuringly. “Ask me while we’re both dressed in our jammies and we’ve talked about it a bit. See what answer I give.”

With some trepidation Frank took the box, sitting up. His eyes searched Foggy’s face, and when Foggy smiled at him, Frank gave a cautious, lopsided smile back. 

He turned himself in the bed so he and Foggy were facing each other. Then Frank opened the box, showing off that little gold band a second time. 

“Foggy, will you marry me?” he asked, quiet and serious.

Foggy smiled. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel right now, about this. But he knew he loved Frank. And he knew he’d waited a long time for someone to love him back. 

“Yes,” he replied. 

Frank’s hands weren’t steady when he took the ring out of its cushion and slid it onto Foggy’s finger. It fit, through some weird power of Frank’s to judge what ring size Foggy would wear. That struck Foggy as characteristic of Frank too: that he had either done his research based on Foggy’s class rings from high school and college which he kept in a box in the closet, or Frank had just eyeballed Foggy’s hands and guessed right because he was a sniper or something weird like that.

“Your willingness to commit was the thing that drew me to you,” Foggy admitted then, pressing his fingers together so the ring dug just a little into the bones of the surrounding digits. “It scares me that you’re so gung-ho because I’m so used to Matt, who’d jump in and then regret it later once he’d had time to think about what he’d done. But you’re not like that, I don’t think. You jump in, and then instead of getting cold feet, you figure out how to make it work.” 

Frank blinked at him, looking almost perplexed. 

“I want this to be a long engagement, Frank,” Foggy told him then, realizing it was true as he said it. “I’m saying yes because I want you to know that I’m in this too, that I’m committed, that you’ve got a home and a fiancé to come to. But I want you to have time to think it over, too, and really know that you’re choosing me for the right reasons.” Foggy gave a little ironic huff, one side of his mouth curling up helplessly as a thought occurred to him. “I’m not gonna knock you up and then marry you just because it’s the right thing to do. I know you truly loved your wife, and that’s the amazing thing about you: you got married so fast because of a reason like that and you made it work the best you possibly could. Not many men would have. Or had enough love to give that they  _ could _ have made it work, whether they wanted to or not.” Frank ducked his chin at this, and Foggy knew this was a delicate topic he maybe wasn’t handling well. But he needed to be honest. If he was gonna wear a ring for this man, even just on a chain around his neck, he had to be. 

So Foggy leaned in close and kissed Frank’s cheek, on a little scar that only showed when the light hit it just right.

“If you’re gonna be my girl, I want you to be my fairy-tale goth princess I marry because you’re the right one for me. Not because you have to, not because it’s the moral thing to do, not because you want a better place to live, and not just because you like the sex. Because you like and respect  _ me, _ and that tells you I’m right for you.”

The breath Frank drew in at this was a tremulous one. He leaned forward till his forehead rested on Foggy’s shoulder, and when he let the breath out, it warmed the collar of Foggy’s loose t-shirt. 

“Yeah,” Frank agreed. “Yeah, that--that’s what I want, too. Makes me glad you said yes.” Another slow inhale and even slower exhale. “I never got to have this with Maria. I was gone so much, and she wasn’t one to move around Army bases with me, and so many of my deployments were so top-secret she couldn’t have gone where I was anyway. I saw her so rarely. Even once I was back for good, we already had two kids, and they took up so much time and energy, and we only got a year of actually living together before--” He swallowed audibly, and Foggy stroked a hand down his back.  _N_ _ ow _  Foggy felt the tenderness he’d wanted to feel during the proposal itself. 

“Being gone so much made it easier to make it work,” Frank admitted. “It made it easy to forget the arguments and the hard shit and just remember the wonderful parts. And having kids meant there was no other choice.” Frank fumbled under Foggy’s shirt, sliding his hands under the waistband of Foggy’s sweatpants and briefs. The fingers were a little cold. “I like that I get to _choose_ you. Not because I was too stupid to wear a fucking condom, not because of anyone or anything else. I like to think I would have chosen Maria like this, if I could, but I’ll never get to know. Neither will she.” He sighed. “Feels like I’m betraying her by saying that. Her and the kids.”

“No,” Foggy disagreed. “It’s not betraying them to have wanted things to be better for all of you. Or to enjoy having more options than any of you had then.”

This got a bitter snort from the other man. “You sure got a rose-tinted way of looking at things.”

“Yeah,” Foggy laughed. “That’s why I’m the guy you’re gonna marry.” 

**

A nameless discomfort squirmed in the back of Foggy’s mind for days afterward. 

The ring wasn’t the problem. He bought himself a nice chain from a jewelry store on the way home from his office and thus kept the ring under his shirt at work. Foggy found he didn’t actually mind the prospect of his relationship being a private one, because the important people in his life already knew about Frank. (Karen flipped out when they told her, and Frank reported that Curtis was insufferably smug about the whole thing. Foggy hadn’t told his family yet, but that could wait.)

Frank’s lack of a matching ring wasn’t an issue either. They had gone together to the jewelry store to acquire one for Frank within a week of the proposal. 

_ Frank _ wasn’t the problem either, at least so far as Foggy could tell. 

When Foggy realized what the problem actually was, he felt a little ashamed for not thinking of it earlier. He blamed it on Matt’s absence from his life; matters of faith just didn’t occur to Foggy anymore. Foggy had never been religious, his family was agnostic in a vague, Protestant way. Matt had always been the one to mind that aspect of their lives. 

It took Foggy another week of contemplation to figure out what to do and acquire what he wanted. 

It was a Sunday when Foggy arrived at the graveyard. It took time to find the correct graves, but he found them in the end: Maria Goldberg Castle, Frank Castle Junior, and Lisa Castle. Maria was in the middle, as if whoever had arranged the graves had wanted to imagine her children nestled close on both sides of her. 

Foggy seated himself on Maria’s grave, setting his satchel down beside him. First he took out a pair of scissors, to trim the grass a little. Next came a shoe brush, to sweep the gravestones. 

Then came the gifts. Part of Foggy felt foolish doing this. He wasn’t sure what he believed anymore, whether there was a Heaven or reincarnation or any afterlife at all. But he had brought something for each of them. 

One couldn’t have a relationship with Frank without having a relationship with his dead family. A relationship with loss and grief. 

On Frank Junior’s grave, Foggy placed a little action figure of a soldier. For a minute, Foggy fiddled with the toy, trying to get it to stand up in the grass, before Foggy simply folded the little plastic legs so they were out in front of the toy’s torso and sat it down so it leaned against the gravestone. That seemed fitting, a little effigy of Frank leaning against his son’s grave. Foggy had already removed the gun the toy had come with and thrown it away.

“I never got to meet you,” Foggy started, talking in a low voice. This was private, and not for anyone else who might come to the graveyard to overhear. He swallowed; he’d tried to think of what to say before coming here, but now he was actually confronted with the grave of a six-year-old who’d been betrayed by a family friend he had seen as an uncle, the words were harder to find. 

“I’m in love with your father,” Foggy managed after a pause, and was startled by the way the words came out choked up. “I don’t know how much you knew about him, really. I don’t know how much you know about him now, wherever you are.”

Foggy paused again, reaching out to trace the shape of the engraved letters. He couldn’t help but think of Matt, now. He’d gone with Matt to visit the graves of Matt’s parents so many times over the years, gone with Matt to Mass, tried to stay by Matt’s side as Matt strove to get close to them. 

Matt had faith in God, while Foggy mostly just tried to have faith in people. That was hard enough.

On three separate occasions, always while drunk, Matt had asked Foggy if he thought Matt’s parents would be proud of him or if they’d be ashamed of the man he’d grown up to be. Like everything else Matt loved, he experienced his parents’ imagined regard as both a miserable weight and something he desperately longed for. 

“You have his name,” Foggy said, as gentle as he could. “Your father tells me that he didn’t know how to raise you. He didn’t like that Maria named you after him. He was afraid of you becoming like him.” Foggy dug his fingernail into the edges of the ‘r’ at the end of ‘Junior’. “I hope...I hope that wherever you are, you have the best parts of him. His protectiveness. His generosity. His sweetness.” Foggy shook his head. “Your father is so sweet. I hope you got to see that, while you were alive.”

Foggy dropped his hand to the little toy, rubbing the pad of his thumb over its tiny face. 

“I never got to have toys like this when I was a kid. I got Barbies instead. I did all the usual things with them, playing family and doctor and whatnot, but I did horrible things to them, too. I think most kids do. I wonder if you had toys like this? I wonder if you imagined that one of them was your father. I wonder what stories you told yourself about him, and if he lived up to them when you did get to be with him.”

Swallowing hard, Foggy turned to the other little grave. This time he pulled a book out of his satchel: a copy of the first Alanna book by Tamora Pierce. He leaned this too against the gravestone. He was going to leave it behind today, which meant that eventually, it would mildew and rot and return to the earth just like the girl he was leaving it for. 

“I have no idea if you would have liked this book,” Foggy told the gravestone. “People being people, maybe you’d hate it and think it’s stupid and trite.” Foggy smiled to himself, imagining a ten-year-old girl with Frank’s serious eyes telling him in the brutal way that pre-teens had that the book had been ‘all right, she supposed.’ “Or maybe you would have loved it. Frank tells me you were a big reader. That he read to you whenever he was home to see you, and that you took it up when he was gone, maybe to feel close to him.” Foggy allowed himself a little smile. “Well, whether you would have loved or hated this book, it was important to me when I was your age. To lots of little trans boys, probably, even though it’s not a trans story. So I want you to have a copy. If you were here, I would have read it to you. Frank reads a lot. He and I have started reading together, sometimes. It’s easy to picture you there with us.”

Finally, Foggy turned to the hardest grave for him to face. For this, he drew out the reason he’d brought a satchel of this size: a bouquet of two dozen roses, white and pink and red and gold. He laid them on Maria’s grave, and sat to stare at the dates of her lifespan for a while in silence. 

“I don’t know if we would have gotten along,” Foggy said bluntly. “If you had a hard time with your husband being bi, chances are you would have struggled with me as a bi trans person. And some of the things Frank told me about the way you two communicated have me worried.” Foggy forced himself to take a breath. Foggy hated the idea that Maria would have been disgusted by him. Or maybe even by Frank, now. But she was past the point of judging anyone or anything, which was why Foggy was here. 

“That’s just it, isn’t it,” Foggy told the gravestone. “I think the two of you needed marriage counseling. Badly. And how could you not? A rushed marriage to a man who was almost never there, two unplanned pregnancies you went through on your own, and all the stress of being a single mom while also having all the stress of being married to a soldier. And then when you finally got Frank back, you were married to an extremely traumatized soldier whose best friend was a psychopath who lied to all of you every step of the way.” Foggy shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, with complete earnestness. “Maybe we wouldn’t have gotten along personally or politically. But maybe it was just that you were stressed and lonely, and afraid that Frank being bi would mean that he’d leave you _again_ when he had already been gone so much. Believe me, I get being afraid that someone will leave because you can’t provide everything they want. It happened to me, and before it did, I was jealous and insecure all the time too.”

Foggy made himself take deep breaths. It felt good to say all this out loud, even if nobody was listening. 

“Even if I marry him, I’m not going to take your place,” Foggy said at last. “I can’t. I’ll never be the parent to his children like you were, and I’ll never be his first great love. But I feel guilty, sometimes, that I get to be with Frank now that he’s actually getting the help he needs,” Foggy admitted. “I get to be with him now he has real friends and real support, and I’m sure that’s made a huge difference in the person he is. And you didn’t get to have that with him.” At this, Foggy first squeezed his eyes shut and then stared up at the sky, blinking hard to keep from crying. “All of you deserved better, him included. I like to hope that...that being with me helps him in some way, like being with him helps me. I hope I’ll make him happy, and that wherever you are, you’re glad for him.”

For some minutes after that, Foggy sat at the graves. He thought about the future he hoped to share with Frank, and the past that had brought them together. Then he stood, shaking out his legs, and leaning on Maria’s gravestone for support.

“You’ll be at the wedding, because Frank brings you with him wherever he goes,” Foggy said at last. “I can’t bring an invitation here, because probably we’ll just have a courthouse wedding, and even if there were invites, if Frank visits here and sees I left one, it might make him feel weird. But this is me inviting you.”

With that, Foggy wrapped his bag over his shoulder, and walked out of the graveyard. Frank would be at home cooking dinner, and Foggy wanted to be there while it was still warm. 


End file.
